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A poet of our own time enchantingly depicts the beauty of a paintedwindow :
“ A casement high and triple-arch’d there was,
All garlanded with carven imageries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth’s deep damask’d wings;
And in the midst, ’mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and kings.
“ Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fine breast,
As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon ;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest;
And on her silver cross pale amethyst,
And on her hair a glory like a saint:
She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven.”
The author is indebted to Mr. Willement for the following shortEssay on Stained Glass ; a kindness the more thankfully to be ac-knowledged, from Mr. Willement being himself engaged in a history ofthat delightful art by which it is produced:—
“ Stained Glass formed too prominent and beautiful a feature ofarchitectural decoration in the Tudor times, to excuse its being passedover without observation; it must, however, be kept in mind, that theperiod under consideration forms but a very limited portion in thegeneral history of this fascinating art, and that during the course ofits decay.