d arch like the Pantheon at
Rome), are certainly the best pieces of this magnificent fabrick. The
high altar is approached by steps of red marble, and invironed by
sixteen pillars of jasper, which reach the top of the quire, and cost
only a matter of fifty or sixty thousand crowns cutting, between these
are niches with statues of guilded brass, and so there are on the side
of the tables and praying places. The Pantheon is under the altar, and
descended by stairs, though narrow, very light; at the entrance of this
rich chappel, a marble shines, whose lustre is heightened by reflexion
of the gold, with which all the iron-work and part of that fair stone
are overlaid. In the middle of it, and right against the altar, is a
fair candlestick of brass, gilded, and in six several niches,
twenty-four sepulchres of black marble to receive as many bodies; above
the gate are two more. This stately monument is small, but sumptuous, it
was finished by the present King, who, about six months since placed
there the bodies of Charles the Fifth, Philip the Second, and Philip the
Third. The first was most intire; in the niches, on the left, lie the
Queens, and the last of them Queen Elizabeth of Burbon. He that preached
the day that these seven tombs or sepulchres had bodies laid in them,
began by his apprehension to speak in presence of so many kings who had
conquered the world, and expressed himself so well, and so highly
pleased the King that he got a yearly pension of a thousand crowns.
Nothing attaining such perfection as to secure it from the teeth of
criticks, the three pieces I have now mentioned, have been attacqued by
them. It is objected against the Library, that its entrance suits not
with its magnificence and grandeur, and that it stands as if stoln in,
and not of the same piece with the rest.

"Over against the great altar, where all is so well proportioned, they
wish away a silver lamp, whose size corresponds not with that of the
place it burns in, which is vast and large. In the Pantheon they find
great fault, that all the steps by which it is descended are not marble,
and that the sides of the walls are not incrusted with it, the chappel
being all so, and a like magnificence requisite everywhere. In the
brazen candlestick, the inner part which is not guilded is discerned
amongst the black and foul branches that extend from it. It cost ten
thousand crowns, which is ten times more than it is worth; but it is
common in this