صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

mantic loves of the Lady Jane and the Royal Poet of Scotland.'" Irving.

As I have fancied I could read the French character in the national palace of the Tuileries, so I have pictured to my

self some of the traits of John Bull in his royal abode of Windsor Castle. Irving.

Although the palace has not attained any thing like its full growth, yet what exists is quite big enough for the monarch of such a little country; and Versailles or Windsor has not apartments more nobly proportioned. Thackeray.

Search Windsor Castle, elves, within, without,

Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred
room,

That it may stand till the perpetual doom
In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,
Worthy the owner and the owner it.

Shakespeare.

Home of my heart! to me more fair Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls, The painted, shingly town-house where The freeman's vote for Freedom falls! Whittier. Windsor Forest. A tract of woodland said to be 56 miles in circumference, adjoining the town of Windsor, England, and having many historical and legendary associations. See HERNE'S OAK.

Thy forest, Windsor! and thy green retreats,

At once the Monarch's and the Muses'

seats, Invite my lays.

Pope.

Long shalt thou flourish, Windsor! bodying forth

Chivalric times, and long shall live around

Thy Castle the old oaks of British birth,
Whose guarled roots, tenacious and pro-
found,

As with a lion's talons grasp the ground.
Campbell.

Outstretched beneath the leafy shade
Of Windsor Forest's deepest glade,
A dying woman lay:

Three little children round her stood,
And there went up from the greenwood
A woful wail that day.
Caroline Bowles Southey.

Windsor Knights. The name given to a body of superannuated military officers who are provided with accommodations in Windsor Castle, and who receive a daily allowance. The establishment was founded by Edward the Third. Wingfield Manor-house. A fine mansion in Derbyshire, England. It was built by Ralph, Lord Cromwell, Treasurer of England in the time of Henry VI. Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned

here, under the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury.

Winifred's Well. See ST. WINIWinter Palace. A gigantic pile of FRED'S WELL. buildings in St. Petersburg, Russia, used by the emperor as his residence when at home in his capital. It is one of the largest and most splendid royal edifices in the world, the interior especially being very gorgeous. The present building was erected upon the site of another bearing the same name, which was destroyed by fire in 1837. It is said that 6,000 persons occupy this palace during the period of the emperor's residence in it. It contains a regalia-room and a picture-gallery. Of the old Winter Palace, Kohl says: "The suites of apartments were perfect labyrinths, and even the chief of the imperial household, who had filled that post for 12 years, was not perfectly acquainted with all the nooks and corners of the building." The new palace, though not so intricate, is of equal size.

"To me the most delightful part of the Winter Palace was the garden. It forms one of the suite of thirty halls, some of them three hundred feet long, on the second story. In this garden. . rise clumps of Italian cypress and laurel from beds of emerald turf and bloom. ing hyacinths. Lamps of fretted glass hang among the foliage, and diffuse a mellow golden moonlight over the enchanted ground." Bayard Taylor

Winthrop, Fort. See FORT WIN

THROP.

[blocks in formation]

Salem witchcraft culminates. There is seen, approaching by the railway, a bleak and rocky eminence bestrewn with a little soil. On the summit is a tolerably level area of several acres. Not a tree was growing on it when I was there. The bleak winds sweep over it without hinderance. ... John Adams mentions a visit to this hill in 1766, then called Witchcraft Hill. In 1793, Dr. Morse notes that the graves might still be traced." Drake.

Wivern, The. An armor-plated ship of the British navy. It was launched Aug. 27, 1863.

Woburn Abbey. The seat of the Duke of Bedford, near the town of Woburn, Bedford, England. The modern mansion, which is of the last century, includes a part of the ancient abbey from which it derives its name.

"He [an American] would sooner have built Jones's tenth block, with a prospect of completing a twentieth, than settle himself down at rest for life as the owner of a Chatsworth or a Woburn." Trollope.

Over this seems to lie a certain tenderness for humanity in general, bred out of life-long trial. I should say, but sharply streaked with fiery lines of wrath, at various individual acts of wrong, especially if they come in an ecclesiastical shape, and recall to him the days when his mother's great-grandmother was strangled on Witch Hill, with a text from the Old Tes- Wokey Hole. A remarkable and romantic cavern, near Glastonbury, England.

ment for her halter.

Holmes.

Witch House. An ancient house in Salem, Mass., one of the oldest, if not the very oldest building, now standing in this part of the country. It is said to have been built in 1631. Here were tried persons suspected of witchcraft during the terrible delusion which spread over New England. A modern addition has been made to the building.

Drake.

"In appearance the original house might have been transplanted out of old London. Its peaked gables, with pine-apples carved in wood sur. mounting, its latticed windows and colossal chimney, put it unmistakably in the age of ruffs, Spanish cloaks, and long rapiers. It has long been divested of its antique English character, now appearing no more than a remi niscence of its former self." Witch of Endor. A picture by Washington Allston (1779-1843). Wittinagemot Club. The name Wittinagemot was applied to a corner box of the coffee-room of the Chapter Coffee-house in Paternoster Row, London, noted, in the eighteenth century, as a favorite resort of publishers, booksellers, men of letters, and others. The Chapter Coffee-house, also famed for its newspapers, pamphlets, and for its punch, was altered into a tavern in 1854. Wittlesbach Ancestors. Twelve statues, so called, in the Hall of the Throne, in the New Palace of Munich, Bavaria.

A picture by Peter Wolf Hunt. Paul Rubens (1577-1640), and considered one of his most magnificent works. It was once in the collection of Lord Ashburton, England.

Wolf of the Capitol. A famous bronze figure of unknown antiquity in the Capitol at Rome. Some regard this as the bronze wolf described by Dionysius as standing at the temple of Romulus under the Palatine; while others consider that it is one referred to by Cicero in one of his harangues against Catiline, which was struck by lightning in the time of that orator, and which is also commemorated by Virgil in his well-known lines. The wolf is undoubtedly ancient, but the twins are modern.

And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of
Rome!

She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs im-
part

The milk of conquest yet within the dome
Where, as a monument of antique art,
Thou standest: Mother of the mighty

heart,

Which the great founder suck'd from thy wild teat,

Scorch'd by the Roman Jove's ethereal

dart,

And thy limbs black with lightning - dost thou yet

Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond Byron. charge forget? Wolfe. See DEATH OF WOLFE.

Wolfert's Roost. See SUNNYSIDE.

Woman sick with the Dropsy. A picture by Gerard Dow (16131674?), the Dutch genre-painter, and considered to be his masterpiece. It is in the National Gallery, London. There is another in the Louvre, Paris.

Woman taken in Adultery. A celebrated picture by Rembrandt van Ryn (1607-1669), the Dutch painter. It is now in the National Gallery, London.

"In this work a touching truthfulness and depth of feeling, with every other grand quality peculiar to Rembrandt, are seen in their highest perfection." Handbook of Painting.

Women of Algiers. A noted pic-
ture by Ferdinand Victor Eugène
Delacroix (1799-1863), the cele-
brated French historical painter.
This picture, which appeared in
1834, procured for the artist a high
reputation as a colorist.

Wonders of the World. See SEVEN
WONDERS OF THE WORLD.

Woodland. A cemetery in Phila-
delphia, Penn., with many fine
and costly monuments.

Woodlawn. A cemetery a few miles from New York, containing fine monuments. Woodward Avenue. One of the principal streets in Detroit, Mich. Woodward's Gardens. A pleasure-resort in San Francisco, Cal. Woolwich Arsenal. The largest depot of military stores in the world, at Woolwich, near London. It covers an area of more than 100 acres, and contains over 20,000 pieces of ordnance, besides a great variety of warlike material.

Wood Street. A street in London,

which has now disappeared.

At the corner of Wood Street when daylight appears,

Hangs a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years;

Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard

In the silence of morning the song of the bird. Wordsworth.

Woolsack, The. A large sack of

wool covered with red cloth, the seat of the Lord Chancellor of England in the House of Lords.

Consider... if it is not yet, in these last days, by very much the same means

that the like result is brought about: and from the Woolsack down to the Treadmill, from Almack's to Chalk Farm and the West-end of Newgate, the incongruous whirlpool of life is forced and Induced to whirl with some attempt at regularity? Carlyle.

That he who sat in Chancery, and rayed out speculation from the Woolsack, was now a man that squinted, now a man that did not squint? Carlyle.

Wooster, Fort. See FORT Woos

TER.

Worcester College. A college in Oxford, England, founded in 1714, one of the 19 colleges which are included in the university.

At Worcester College an ample sheet of water, on which swans float, moistens with its slow undulations the greensward constellated with flowers. Taine, Trans. Worcester House. A noble mansion which formerly stood in the Strand, London, the residence of the Bishops of Carlisle. Worksop Manor. The seat of the Duke of Norfolk, near the town of Worksop, England. World, The. club.

An old London

"There was a club held at the King's Head, in Pall Mall, that arrogantly called itself The World.'"

Spence's Anecdotes.

On one occasion, after dinner, when each member proposed an epigram to be written upon the glasses, Dr. Young, who was present as a guest, refused to make one because he had no diamond with which to write it, whereupon Lord Stanhope handed him his, and he immediately wrote the following:

Accept a miracle, instead of wit:

See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ.

Worms Cathedral. A noble cathedral in Worms, Germany, regarded as one of the finest Romanesque churches in the world. It has ten towers.

Worsley Hall.

The seat of the Earl of Ellesmere, near Manchester, England.

[ocr errors]

Wotton House. A mansion in Surrey, England, once the residence of John Evelyn. It was built in the age of Elizabeth. John Evelyn describes the house as large and ancient, suitable to those hospitable times, and so sweetly environed with delicious streams and venerable woods. It has rising grounds, meadows, woods, and water in abundance." Wounded Gladiator. A famous relic of ancient sculpture. Now in the Museum at Naples. See BORGHESE GLADIATOR and DYING GLADIATOR.

Wrestlers, The. [Ital. I Lottatori.] An ancient statue, now in the Tribune of the Uffizi Palace, Florence, Italy.

"In the famous group of the Wrestlers, the flexibility of the intwined limbs, the force of the muscles, and the life and action of the figures are wonderful; . . . their fixed, im.

movable countenances have no marks even of that corporeal exertion, much less of that eager animation and pas sion, which men struggling with each other in the heat of contest would naturally feel." Eaton.

Wyandotte Cave. A noted cavern in Crawford County, Indiana, thought to be not much inferior in interest to the famous Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. It has been explored over 20 miles.

Wych Street. A London street, famous for the exploits of Jack Sheppard.

Wyndham Club. A club in London, so called froni William Wyndham, a former occupant of the house, founded by Lord Nugent, to secure a convenient and agreeable place of meeting for a society of gentlemen, all connected with each other by a common bond of literary or personal acquaintance."

Xanthian Marbles. See LYCIAN GALLERY.

X.

Xerxes, Hall of. A magnificent ruin in ancient Persepolis, regarded the finest building of which any remains exist in that part of the world.

"Presuming this structure to have been sculptured and painted as richly as others of its age and class, which it no doubt was, it must have been not only one of the largest, but one of the most splendid, buildings of antiquity. In plan it was a rectangle of about 300 feet by 350, and consequently covered 105,000 square feet; it was thus larger than the hypostyle hall at Karnac, or any of the largest

temples of Greece or Rome. It is larger, too, than any mediæval cathedral except that of Milan; and although it has neither the stone roof of a cathedral, nor the massiveness of an Egyptian building, still its size and proportions, combined with the lightness of its architecture, and the beauty of its decorations, must have made it one of the most beautiful buildings ever erected. Both in design and proportion, it far surpassed those of Assyria, and though possessing much of detail or of ornament that was almost identical, its arrangements and proportions were so superior in every respect that no similar building in Nineveh can be compared with this-the great architec tural creation of the Persian Empire." Fergusson.

« السابقةمتابعة »