230 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Situated on a beautiful elevation, it overlooks one of the 

 most lovely and finished landscapes in all England. Looking 

 down from the " castled keep," Eton College stands almost at 

 your feet, and off beyond the town rises the graceful spire of 

 Stoke Pogis Church, the spot which gave inspiration to the 

 Poet Gray, whose " Elegy in a Country Churchyard " is the 

 sweetest gem of the language ; while a little to the left, in 

 Stoke Park, is the seat of the Penns, whose name will be for- 

 ever associated with the history of Pennsylvania, and near by 

 which are the remains of an old house of Coke, one of the 

 great lights of English \^w; while here at the right, a little, is 

 Slough, where Sir William Herschel made his observations as 

 an astronomer, with the great telescope, the largest ever con- 

 structed. The remains of this great man lie over there 

 yonder in the old Norman Church at Upton. But here, in tlie 

 opposite direction, down the river, is old Windsor, where the 

 old Saxon and early Norman kings first fixed their seat, and 

 there is Runnymede, where the proud barons wrung the Magna 

 Charta from King John in 1215. Twelve counties can be seen 

 from this lofty tower in a clear day. 



Windsor Castle is the seat of Her Majesty the Queen, and of 

 her ancestors clear back to the conquest. One cannot pass 

 through its endless succession of halls and towers without the 

 reflection that many of the brightest as well as the blackest 

 pages of English history are connected with the spot. The 

 houses of York and Lancaster struggled for its possession. 

 Here were signed the decrees which lighted the fires of Smith- 

 field. These walls have witnessed the extinction of royal 

 houses, and in turn sheltered the great actors in the Common- 

 wealth. Here Cromwell thundered away to all Europe against 

 the persecution of men for their Protestantism. The names of 

 warriors, statesmen, divines, poets, some of the brightest names 

 as well as the blackest on the pages of history are forever con- 

 nected with the annals of this castle. Many state prisoners 

 were confined here. 



As we arrive, the Audience Chamber is first entered. It is a 

 gorgeous room, the ceiling painted by Verrio, representing the 

 coronation of Esther and tlie triumph of Mordccai in Goberlin 

 tapestry. There are portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, <fec. 

 Then comes tiic Presence Chamber, containing also subjects 



