On one side of the road from Staines to Old Windsor are gasworks, perhaps the most impressive and singular of purely modern architectural monuments; on the other is Runnymede, a vast green level, skirted by the river and walled by woods, perfectly worthy of the scene of King John's humiliation and the Barons' triumph in 1215, which have left it probably as it was before them, except for the hedges of whitethorn. The Workhouse at Old Windsor lies close to some of the most masculine iron oaks, some of the quietest reedy water and furry turf. And if the near neighbourhood of a running river, wide grass, embowered hills, and the great skies over the Thames, cause new things to rasp a little more harshly than usual, these in their turn give an exquisite edge to the rusticity. Nowhere are elmy meadows, mistletoed poplars, willowy serpentining brooks, sweeter than at Datchet: the very name has a country sound before it is seen, and without any magical help from _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. Nowhere more beautifully does the deer trip half a dozen steps and then rise and glide the same distance with only a forward motion, than under the spruces, at the edge of the high road, within half a mile of the confectionery turrets of Holloway College. [Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE FROM FELLOWS' EYOT, ETON] This tract of country was one of the earliest to be highly civilized, and for three centuries the dilettante has admired it. John Evelyn was at Windsor on June 8, 1654, and found the Castle rooms "melancholy and of ancient magnificence", but walking on the terrace, he thought that "Eton, with the park, meandering Thames, and sweet meadows yield one of the most delightful prospects". Ten years later, Pepys exclaimed: "Lord! the prospect that is in the balcony in the Queen's lodgings, and the terrace and walk, are strange things to consider, being the best in the world, sure". Swift told Stella that Windsor was "a delicious place". Gray stood on the same terrace looking towards Eton, and wrote a poem which began as if it was to be his _Ode on the Intimations of Immortality_, such was the feeling of its first two verses, and these lines especially: I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow. I forget the rest. Gray had an aunt at Stoke Poges, near Eton, and visited Stoke Park, where in 1799 a Mr. Penn put up a monument to him as author of the _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_. As famous by name, but far less read, is the "Cooper's Hill", which Sir John Denham wrote in the first year of the Civil War. In the opening lines-- Sure there are poets who did never dream Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream Of Helicon; we therefore may suppose Those made not poets, but the poets those. And as courts make not kings, but kings the court, So where the Muses and their train resort Parnassus stands; if I can be to thee A poet, thou Parnassus art to me--