od--a window in the Norman Tower of
Windsor Castle, now fitly garnished and guarded by sympathetic hands,
from which the spectator looking out upon the deep moat-garden
underneath in the circle about the old donjon will scarcely be able to
withstand the thrill of feeling which attends a poetic scene and
incident fully realised. Nothing could be more green, more fresh, more
full of romance and association, than this garden where all is youthful
as the May, yet old in endless tradition, the garden of the Edwards and
Henrys, where Chaucer himself may have thought over his accounts or
taken the delightful image of his young squire "synging" who was, "or
flouting all the day" from among some group of bright-faced lads in
their bravery, where the countess who dropped her garter may have
wandered, and the hapless Henry, the mild and puny child who was born
there while James was undergoing his far from harsh captivity, played.
James Stewart's name, had he been no king, would have been associated
with this place, as that of his master in poetry is with the flowery
ways of Kent.

Nor was his inspiration derived alone from the well of English
undefiled. A still more wonderful gift developed in him when he got home
to his native country. Though the tones of Scotch humour were much less
refined, and its utterances at that early period could be scarcely more
than the jests and unwritten ballads of the populace, yet his early
acquaintance with them must have lingered in the young Prince's mind,
acquiring additional zest from the prepossessions of exile and the
longing for home. And when the polished singer of the King's "Quhair"
found himself again in his native land he seems to have burst forth with
the most genuine impulse into the broad fun, rustical and natural and
racy of the soil, which perhaps was more congenial to his Scottish
audience. "Peblis to the Play" and "Christis Kirk on the Green" are
poems full of the very breath of rural life and the rude yet joyous
meetings of the country folk at kirk and market, which with wonderfully
little difference of sentiment and movement also inspired Burns. He must
have had a mind full of variety and wide human sympathy almost
Shakspearian, who could step from the musings of Windsor and the
beautiful heroine, all romance and ethereal splendour, to the lasses in
their gay kirtles, and Hob and Raaf with their rustic "daffing," as true
to the life as the Ayrshire clowns of Burns, and all the