t of a mountain and his closet, with
two inches of paper, he made himself obeyed in the Old and New World.

"The King and Queen's apartments have nothing in them that appears
roial, they are altogether unfurnished, and they say, when the King goes
to any of his houses of pleasure, they remove all to the very bedsteads;
the rooms are little and low; the roofs not beautiful enough to invite
the eyes to look up to them; its many pictures of excellent masters, and
especially of Titian, that wrought a great while there, are very much
vaunted, yet there are not so many as report gives out. The Spaniards
have so little understanding of pictures, they are alike taken with all,
and the Marquis Serragenovese, that accompanied us, sufficiently laughed
at the foolishness of a Castillian, who, willing to have us admire the
slightest and wretchedest landskipes of a gallery where we were, told us
nothing could equalize them, because in a place where their King
sometimes walked. There are yet in the vestry some good pieces,
especially a Christ, and Mary Magdalen; and in the Church others very
estimable. For paintings in fresco, the quire, done by Titian, is
doubtlessly an excellent work, and so is the library, I think by the
same hand, where amongst the rest is represented the ancient Roman
manner of defending criminals, who stand by bound hand and foot; Cicero
is also there pleading for Milo, or some other, I not being sufficiently
acquainted with his meen, to be positive, and without apprehension of
mistaking; this library is truly very considerable, as well for its
length, breadth, height, and light; the pictures and marble tables that
stand in the midst of it, as for its quantity of choice and rare books,
if we may believe the monks; they are certainly very well bound and
guilded, and if I mistake not, but seldom read. In the vestry, they show
priests' copes, where embroidery and pearl with emulation contend
whether art or matter renders them more rich and sumptuous; they showed
us a cross of very fair pearl, diamonds, and emeralds; it is a very
pretty knack, and would not become less such if it changed countreys, I
would willingly have undertaken for it if they would have suffered it to
pass the Pyreneans, had it been only to show my friends a hundred
thousand crowns in a nut-shell. The library I have spoken of, the high
altar and monument of their kings, which they call Pantheon (though I
know not why, unless because a single roun