“No more the sacred window’s round disgrace,
    But yield to Grecian groups the shining space. . . 
    Thy powerful hand has broke the Gothic chain,
    And brought my bosom back to truth again. . . 
    For long, enamoured of a barbarous age,
    A faithless truant to the classic page—­
    Long have I loved to catch the simple chime
    Of minstrel harps, and spell the fabling rime;
    To view the festive rites, the knightly play,
    That decked heroic Albion’s elder day;
    To mark the mouldering halls of barons bold,
    And the rough castle, cast in giant mould;
    With Gothic manners, Gothic arts explore,
    And muse on the magnificence of yore. 
    But chief, enraptured have I loved to roam,
    A lingering votary, the vaulted dome,
    Where the tall shafts, that mount in massy pride,
    Their mingling branches shoot from side to side;
    Where elfin sculptors, with fantastic clew,
    O’er the long roof their wild embroidery drew;
    Where Superstition, with capricious hand,
    In many a maze, the wreathed window planned,
    With hues romantic tinged the gorgeous pane,
    To fill with holy light the wondrous fane."[10]

The application of the word “romantic,” in this passage, to the mediaeval art of glass-staining is significant.  The revival of the art in our own day is due to the influence of the latest English school of romantic poetry and painting, and especially to William Morris.  Warton’s biographers track his passion for antiquity to the impression left upon his mind by a visit to Windsor Castle, when he was a boy.  He used to spend his summers in wandering through abbeys and cathedrals.  He kept notes of his observations and is known to have begun a work on Gothic architecture, no trace of which, however, was found among his manuscripts.  The Bodleian Library was one of his haunts, and he was frequently seen “surveying with quiet and rapt earnestness the ancient gateway of Magdalen College.”  He delighted in illuminated manuscripts and black-letter folios.  In his “Observations on the Faery Queene"[11] he introduces a digression of twenty pages on Gothic architecture, and speaks lovingly of a “very curious and beautiful folio manuscript of the history of Arthur and his knights in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, written on vellum, with illuminated initials and head-pieces, in which we see the fashion of ancient armour, building, manner of tilting and other particulars.”

Another very characteristic poem of Warton’s is the “Ode Written at Vale-Royal Abbey in Cheshire,” a monastery of Cistercian monks, founded by Edward I. This piece is saturated with romantic feeling and written in the stanza and manner of Gray’s “Elegy,” as will appear from a pair of stanzas, taken at random: 

    “By the slow clock, in stately-measured chime,
    That from the messy tower tremendous tolled,
    No more the plowman counts the tedious time,
    Nor distant shepherd pens the twilight fold.