the Jesuits, their gowns reaching down to their ankles, sometimes lined with fur; they wear square caps.  The doctors, Masters of Arts, and professors, have another kind of gown that distinguishes them.  Every student of any considerable standing has a key to the College library, for no college is without one.

In an out-part of the town are the remains of a pretty large fortification, but quite in ruins.  We were entertained at supper with an excellent concert, composed of a variety of instruments.

The next day we went as far as the Royal Palace of Woodstock, where King Ethelred formerly held a Parliament, and enacted certain laws.  This palace, abounding in magnificence, was built by Henry I., to which he joined a very large park, enclosed with a wall; according to John Rosse, the first park in England.  In this very palace the present reigning Queen Elizabeth, before she was confined to the Tower, was kept prisoner by her sister Mary.  While she was detained here, in the utmost peril of her life, she wrote with a piece of charcoal the following verse, composed by herself, upon a window shutter:—

“O Fortune! how thy restless wavering state
   Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit!
Witness this present prison whither fate
   Hath borne me, and the joys I quit.
Thou causedest the guilty to be loosed
From bands wherewith are innocents enclosed;
   Causing the guiltless to be strait reserved,
And freeing those that death had well deserved:
But by her envy can be nothing wrought,
So God send to my foes all they have thought.
A.D., M.D.L.V.”

“Elizabeth, Prisoner.”

Not far from this palace are to be seen, near a spring of the brightest water, the ruins of the habitation of Rosamond Clifford, whose exquisite beauty so entirely captivated the heart of King Henry II. that he lost the thought of all other women; she is said to have been poisoned at last by the Queen.  All that remains of her tomb of stone, the letters of which are almost worn out, is the following:—

“ . . . Adorent,
Utque tibi detur requies Rosamunda precamur.”

The rhyming epitaph following was probably the performance of some monk:—

“Hic jacet in tumbâ Rosamundi non Rosamunda,
Non redolet sed olet, quæ redolere solet.”

Returning from hence to Oxford, after dinner we proceeded on our journey, and passed through Ewhelme, a royal palace, in which some alms-people are supported by an allowance from the Crown.

Nettlebed, a village.

We went through the little town of Henley; from hence the Chiltern Hills bear north in a continued ridge, and divide the counties of Oxford and Buckingham.

We passed Maidenhead.

Windsor, a royal castle, supposed to have been begun by King Arthur, its buildings much increased by Edward III.  The situation is entirely worthy of being a royal residence, a more beautiful being scarce to be found; for, from the brow of a gentle rising, it enjoys the prospect of an even and green country; its front commands a valley extended every way, and chequered with arable lands and pasturage, clothed up and down with groves, and watered by that gentlest of rivers, the Thames; behind rise several hills, but neither steep nor very high, crowned with woods, and seeming designed by Nature herself for the purpose of hunting.

The Kings of England, invited by the deliciousness of the place, very often retire hither; and here was born the conqueror of France, the glorious King Edward III., who built the castle new from the ground, and thoroughly fortified it with trenches, and towers of square stone, and, having soon after subdued in battle John, King of France, and David, King of Scotland, he detained them both prisoners here at the same time.  This castle, besides being the Royal Palace, and having some magnificent tombs of the Kings of England, is famous for the ceremonies belonging to the Knights of the Garter.  This Order was instituted by Edward III., the same who triumphed so illustriously over John, King of France.  The Knights of the Garter are strictly chosen for their military virtues, and antiquity of family; they are bound by solemn oath and vow to mutual and perpetual friendship among themselves, and to the not avoiding any danger whatever, or even death itself, to support, by their joint endeavours, the honour of the Society; they are styled Companions of the Garter, from their wearing below the left knee a purple garter, inscribed in letters of gold with “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” i.e., “Evil to him that evil thinks.”  This they wear upon the left leg, in memory of one which, happening to untie, was let fall by a great lady, passionately beloved by Edward, while she was dancing, and was immediately snatched up by the King, who, to do honour to the lady, not out of any trifling gallantry, but with a most serious and honourable purpose, dedicated it to the legs of the most distinguished nobility.  The ceremonies of this Society are celebrated every year at Windsor on St. George’s Day, the tutelar saint of the Order, the King presiding; and the custom is that the Knights Companions should hang up their helmet and shield, with their arms blazoned on it, in some conspicuous part of the church.

There are three principal and very large courts in Windsor Castle, which give great pleasure to the beholders: the first is enclosed with most elegant buildings of white stone, flat-roofed, and covered with lead; here the Knights of the Garter are lodged; in the middle is a detached house, remarkable for its high tower, which the governor inhabits.  In this is the public kitchen, well furnished with proper utensils, besides a spacious dining-room, where all the poor Knights eat at the same table, for into this Society of the Garter, the King and Sovereign elects, at his own choice, certain persons, who must be gentlemen of three descents, and such as, for their age and the straitness of their fortunes, are fitter for saying their prayers than for the service of war; to each of them is assigned a pension of eighteen pounds per annum and clothes.  The chief institution of so magnificent a foundation is, that they should say their daily prayers to God for the King’s safety, and the happy administration for the kingdom, to which purpose they attend the service, meeting twice every day at chapel.  The left side of this court is ornamented by a most magnificent chapel of one hundred and thirty-four paces in length, and sixteen in breadth; in this are eighteen seats fitted up in the time of Edward III. for an equal number of Knights: this venerable building is decorated with the noble monuments of Edward IV., Henry VI., and VIII., and of his wife Queen Jane.  It receives from royal liberality the annual income of two thousand pounds, and that still much increased by the munificence of Edward III. and Henry VII.  The greatest princes in Christendom have taken it for the highest honour to be admitted into the Order of the Garter; and since its first institution about twenty kings, besides those of England, who are the sovereigns of it, not to mention dukes and persons of the greatest figure, have been of it.  It consists of twenty-six Companions.