. The value of the abbey lands which Henry
seized amounted, a century after his death, to six million pounds. The
lands of the abbey of St. Alban's alone rented for two hundred
thousand pounds. The king debased the coin, confiscated chapels and
colleges, as well as monasteries, and raised money by embargoes,
monopolies, and compulsory loans.

[Sidenote: Improvements Made in the Reign of Elizabeth.]

But Elizabeth, instead of contracting debts, paid off the old ones,
restored the coin to its purity, and was content with an annual
revenue of five hundred thousand pounds, even at a time when the
rebellion in Ireland cost her four hundred thousand pounds. Her
frugality equalled the rapacity of her father, and she was extravagant
only in dress, and on great occasions of public rejoicings. But her
economy was a small matter compared with the wise laws which were
passed respecting the trade of the country, by which commercial
industry began to characterize the people. Improvements in navigation
followed, and also maritime discoveries and colonial settlements. Sir
Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe, and the East India Company
was formed. Under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, Virginia was
discovered and colonized. Unfortunately, also, the African slave trade
commenced--a traffic which has been productive of more human misery,
and led to more disastrous political evils, than can be traced to any
other event in the history of modern times.

During this reign, the houses of the people became more comfortable;
chimneys began to be used; pewter dishes took the place of wooden
trenchers, and wheat was substituted for rye and barley; linen and
woollen cloth was manufactured; salads, cabbages, gooseberries,
apricots, pippins, currants, cherries, plums, carnations, and the
damask rose were cultivated, for the first time. But the great glory
of this reign was the revival of literature and science. Raleigh, "the
soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the philosopher, the poet, the
orator, the historian, the courtier," then, adorned the court, and the
prince of poets, the immortal Shakspeare, then wrote those plays,
which, for moral wisdom and knowledge of the human soul, appear to us
almost to be dictated by the voice of inspiration. The prince of
philosophers too, the great miner and sapper of the false systems of
the middle ages, Francis Bacon, then commenced his career, and Spenser
dedicated to Elizabeth his "Fairy Queen," one of