orty thousand horse.

The two clerks made a fresh bow to the throne, after which the
under-clerk, again half turning his face to the Commons, said,--

"_La Reine le veut_."

The third bill was for increasing the tithes and prebends of the
Bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry, which was one of the richest in
England; for making an increased yearly allowance to the cathedral, for
augmenting the number of its canons, and for increasing its deaneries
and benefices, "to the benefit of our holy religion," as the preamble
set forth. The fourth bill added to the budget fresh taxes--one on
marbled paper; one on hackney coaches, fixed at the number of eight
hundred in London, and taxed at a sum equal to fifty-two francs yearly
each; one on barristers, attorneys, and solicitors, at forty-eight
francs a year a head; one on tanned skins, notwithstanding, said the
preamble, the complaints of the workers in leather; one on soap,
notwithstanding the petitions of the City of Exeter and of the whole of
Devonshire, where great quantities of cloth and serge were manufactured;
one on wine at four shillings; one on flour; one on barley and hops; and
one renewing for four years "the necessities of the State," said the
preamble, "requiring to be attended to before the remonstrances of
commerce"--tonnage-dues, varying from six francs per ton, for ships
coming from the westward, to eighteen francs on those coming from the
eastward. Finally, the bill, declaring the sums already levied for the
current year insufficient, concluded by decreeing a poll-tax on each
subject throughout the kingdom of four shillings per head, adding that a
double tax would be levied on every one who did not take the fresh oath
to Government. The fifth bill forbade the admission into the hospital of
any sick person who on entering did not deposit a pound sterling to pay
for his funeral, in case of death. These last three bills, like the
first two, were one after the other sanctioned and made law by a bow to
the throne, and the four words pronounced by the under-clerk, "_la Reine
le veut_," spoken over his shoulder to the Commons. Then the under-clerk
knelt down again before the fourth woolsack, and the Lord Chancellor
said,--

"_Soit fait comme il est desire_."

This terminated the royal sitting. The Speaker, bent double before the
Chancellor, descended from the stool, backwards, lifting up his robe
behind him; the members of the House of Commons bowed to the ground,