Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/241

 216 PRISON TURRET.

to hear that any inroad should have been made among them by a subsequent conflagration at the Tower, which destroyed so many relics that time and tradition had made precious to mankind.

In a darkened room, through a rampart of iron bars, we were permitted to look at England s regalia, scep tre, ampulla, and christening font, the crown of poor Anne Boleyn, that of James the First, and the new one made for Victoria, sparkling with precious stones, and valued at two millions sterling.

A different class of sentiments were appealed to, as we groped our way up the narrow, winding flight of steps to the turret on whose walls the martyrs had graven their names or etchings, with such rude instru ments as their captivity might command. Climbing still higher, we looked from the grated window whence the lovely Lady Jane Grey gazed upon the headless form of her husband.

��Up, up this dizzy stair, for here she went To her dark prison-room, the sweetly fair,

Around whose cradle, wealth and power had bent, And classic learning strewed its garlands rare,

The guiltless martyr for a father s fault,

Whose strong ambition overleaped the truth,

And placed her, shrinking, on another s throne, To whelm in hapless woe her blooming youth.

�� �