if we deduct the eminence on which it stands, yet enough, in this level country, to give it a prospect of a score or two of miles in all directions.  The Conqueror fell in love with the situation at first sight, and gave a stolen monastery in exchange for it.  The home so won has provided a shelter—­at times very imperfect, indeed—­to British sovereigns for eight centuries.  From the modest erection of William it has been steadily growing—­with the growth of the empire, we were near saying, but its chief enlargements occurred before the empire entered upon the expansion of the past three centuries.  It is more closely associated with Edward III. than with any other of the ancient line.  He was born at Windsor, and almost entirely rebuilt it, William of Wykeham being superintending architect, with “a fee of one shilling a day whilst at Windsor, and two shillings when he went elsewhere on the duties of his office,” three shillings a week being the pay of his clerk.  It becomes at once obvious that the margin for “rings” was but slender in those days.  The labor question gave not the least trouble.  The law of supply and demand was not consulted.  “Three hundred and sixty workmen were impressed, to be employed on the building at the king’s wages; some of whom having clandestinely left Windsor and engaged in other employments to greater advantage, writs were issued prohibiting all persons from employing them on pain of forfeiting all their goods and chattels.”  In presence of so simple and effective a definition of the rights of the workingman, strikes sink into nothingness.  And Magna Charta had been signed a hundred and fifty years before!  That document, however, in honor of which the free and enlightened Briton of to-day is wont to elevate his hat and his voice, was only in the name and on behalf of the barons.  The English people derived under it neither name, place nor right.  English liberty is only incidental, a foundling of untraced parentage, a filius nullius.  True, its growth was indirectly fostered by aught that checked the power of the monarch, and the nobles builded more wisely than they knew or intended when they brought Lackland to book, or to parchment, at Runnymede, not far down the river and close to the edge of the royal park.  The memorable plain is still a meadow, kept ever green and inviolate of the plough.  A pleasant row it is for the Eton youngsters to this spot.  On Magna Charta island, opposite, they may take their rest and their lunch, and refresh their minds as well with the memories of the place.  The task of reform is by no means complete.  There is room and call for further concessions in favor of the masses.  These embryo statesmen have work blocked out for them in the future, and this is a good place for them to adjust to it the focus of their bright young optics.

[Illustration:  ETON COLLEGE AND CHAPEL.]