by the Empress Frederick lately near Homburg, the same combination may be seen. At the Duke of Westminster's house at Eaton in Cheshire, the frame buildings are only used for the offices and "dependencies" as here at Windsor. The red colour of the brick affords a pleasant variety where the eye meets with so much stone. The brick is left to show its colour instead of being covered over with plaster or whitewash. The woodwork surmounts the range of buildings in the form of open battlements, and the interior has a covered way, or cloister walk, running along the whole, which is shaped roughly in the form of the heraldic fetter-lock, an emblem of Edward of Windsor's. The Percys had also such a badge, and, like the garter, it may have been assumed to show that the wearer meant to keep fast hold of that confided to his care. "Fast bind, fast find," was an old saying. Whether Edward desired to convey a hint to the clergy that he did not mean them to run loose from the ecclesiastical charge he had given them, or whether the fetter shape was given to their lodgings as a merely personal remembrance, we do not know. Proceeding through this open court of little residences, we pass the handsome western stair of the church, and see beyond the other side of the "fetterlock," the monument to poor little Alamayou, the son of the Abyssinian monarch. Lord Napier of Magdala, after his storming of that place, brought THE CROWN OF ABYSSINIA. 79 the youth to England, and here he died, and was buried in the chalk catacombs near the church's entrance. His father's crown, which the prince was destined never to wear, was sold for £5 to Mr. Holmes, now librarian at Windsor, by a soldier who had possessed himself of it at Magdala as a piece of "loot," and it is now among the Castle treasures. Look over the parapet, near the remains of the old banqueting hall, from a little terrace on the north wall, and you will have a most striking view along the north front of the Lower Ward, formerly defended by towers, but now given over to the peaceful abodes of the clergy. THE STALLS OF THE GARTER KNIGHTS (pp. 55, 67, 72). St. George's was rich in saintly relics and in its treasury of church plate. Little is there nownothing of what was there of old. The plate went during the Civil Wars to be melted to buy arms. Of the ancient adornments, the carved woodwork and the shields in brass of the Garter knights, each man having his armorial bearings in colour above the stall he once occupied, alone remain. As each knight dies, his banner above is removed to make way for another. Observe the rank shown in the helmets under the flags. A casque looking you square in the face is that of a king, a duke's is a little turned to one side, an earl's is yet more. Would that "the great image of St. George, poising [weighing] 260 Many are still ounces of pure gold, and garnished with pearls, rubies, sapphires, and other stones," could still be seen! But no sacristan here, as at Aix-la-Chapelle, can open door after door to show visitors the wonders of medieval art. The stones must be somewhere, although the metal has been melted. What becomes of all the ancient precious stones? on the figures of Our Lady, many still in altars, and in croziers, and in sacred vessels that have escaped profanation. And, perhaps for the "greater blessing of the greater number," most of them are on the necks and wrists and dresses of fair women who let the world see them more often than of old. The stones will last while human beings tread this earth, but if the pearls be not worn they decay and discolour. Let us rejoice at all events at this, and pass on to THE TOMB-HOUSE, OR WOLSEY CHAPEL, OR ALBERT CHAPEL, where again we strike on memories of Henry VIII., who gave the site, then covered by a ruin, to his great Cardinal Wolsey. The cardinal, wishing to have it as his own grave and monument, built a stately fabric, and intended that his own body should lie there, and that over his narrow bed there should be erected a mass of "white and black marble, with eight brazen columns around it, and four others in the shape of candlesticks," designed by Benedetto, a Florentine, with much carving and gilding a thing never finished. Part of the work |