facetious Charles in his disguise of an old woman; and on the bank over
the Well is the spot where tradition relates fair Rosamond yielded to
the menaces of Eleanor. Our correspondent, _T.W._, jocosely observes,
that he sends us the Labyrinth "without the silken cord which guided the
cruel Eleanor to her rival, in the hope that the ingenuity of the reader
will be sufficient to serve him in its stead. Observe," continues he,
"the maze is entered at one of the side gates, and the bower must be
reached without any of the barriers (--) being passed over--that is, by
an uninterrupted pathway."[3]

The bower consists of fine tall trees, whose branches hang entwined over
the front of the well. The spring is contained in a large basin, formed
by a plain stone wall, which serves as a facing and support to the bank;
the water flows from hence through a hole of about five inches in
diameter, and is conveyed by a channel under the pavement into another
basin of considerable dimensions, fenced with an iron railing. Hence it
again escapes by means of a grating into the beautiful lake of Woodstock
Park, or, as it is more modernly termed, Blenheim.

In these days of "hobgoblin lore," it may not be incurious to add, that
Woodstock is distinguished in Dr. Plot's _History of Oxfordshire_ (the
_title_ of which is well known to all readers of the marvellous) as the
scene of a series of hoax and disturbance played off upon the
commissioners of the Long Parliament, who were sent down to dispark and
destroy Woodstock, after the death of Charles I.; and Sir Walter Scott
thinks it "highly probable" that this "piece of phantasmagoria was
conducted by means of the secret passages and recesses in the Labyrinth
of Rosamond"--it must be admitted, a very convenient scene for such a
farce. Sir Walter says, "I have not the book at hand"--neither have we;
but we may probably allude to this curious affair on some future