he evening
tryst of his tribe. Where is the hawk? Will he not rise from some fair
wrist among the gay troop we see cantering across yonder glade? Only
the addition of that little gray speck circling into the blue is
needed to round off our illusion. But it comes not. In place of it
comes a spirt of steam from the railway viaduct, and the whistle of
an engine. Froissart is five hundred years dead again, and we turn to
Bradshaw.

[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE, FROM BISHOPSGATE.]

Yet we have a "view of an interior" to contemplate before facing the
lower Thames. And first, as the day is fading, we seek the dimmest
part. We dive into the crypt of the bell-tower, or the curfew-tower,
that used to send far and wide to many a Saxon cottage the hateful
warning that told of servitude. How old the base of this tower is
nobody seems to know, nor how far back it has served as a prison.
The oldest initials of state prisoners inscribed on its cells date
to 1600. The walls are twelve feet thick, and must have begotten a
pleasant feeling of perfect security in the breasts of the involuntary
inhabitants. They did not know of a device contrived for the security
of their jailers, which has but recently been discovered. This is a
subterranean and subaqueous passage, alleged to lead under the river
to Burnham Abbey, three miles off. The visitor will not be disposed to
verify this statement or to stay long in the comparatively airy crypt.
Damp as the British climate may be above ground, it is more so below.
We emerge to the fine range of state apartments above, and submit to
the rule of guide and guide-book.

[Illustration: LOCK AT WINDSOR.]

St. George's Hall, the Waterloo gallery, the council-chamber and the
Vandyck room are the most attractive, all of them for the historical
portraits they contain, and the first, besides, for its merit as an
example of a Gothic interior and its associations with the order of
the Garter, the knights of which society are installed in it. The
specialty of the Waterloo room is the series of portraits of the
leaders, civil and military, English and continental, of the last and
successful league against Napoleon. They are nearly all by Lawrence,
and of course admirable in their delineation of character. In that
essential of a good portrait none of the English school have excelled
Lawrence. We may rely upon the truth to Nature of each of the heads
before us; for air and expression accord with what history t