dvantageously replaced.

[Picture: Earl of Essex]

If you like, we will return to the inner hall, where is a portrait of the
celebrated Earl of Essex, an undoubted original picture, dated 1598,
three years previous to his being beheaded (Zucchero), and from it at
once enter the library, or breakfast-room. Here there is a superbly
carved Elizabethan chimney-piece.

[Picture: Elizabethan chimney-piece]

What are you about? You should not have touched so thoughtlessly that
"brass inkstand," as you call it. It is actually a pix, or holy box,
{227} which once contained the host, and was considered "so sacred, that
upon the march of armies it was especially prohibited from theft." We
are told that Henry V. delayed his army for a whole day to discover the
thief who had stolen one. You may admire the pictures as much as you
please; they are odd and hard-looking portraits to my eye; but they are
historically curious, and clever, too, for their age. [Picture: Pix, or
Holy Box] Could you only patiently listen to a discussion upon the
characters of the originals of the portraits that have hung upon these
walls, or the volumes that have filled these shelves; you might gain a
deeper insight into the workings of the human heart than, perhaps, you
would care to be instructed by. There were in the next room--the
dining-room--into which we may proceed when you please, for only by a
sliding door between the library and dining-room are they separated--such
pictures! [Picture: Sliding door into dining-room] An unquestionable
'Henry VIII.,' by Holbein; a 'Queen Mary,' by Lucas de Heere, from the
collection of the late Mr. Dent; and a glorious 'Elizabeth,' that had
belonged to Nathaniel Rich of Eltham, who we know from the particulars of
sale that were in the Augmentation Office, was the purchaser of Eltham
Palace, when disposed of by the Parliament after the death of Charles I.;
and we also know from Strype's _Annals of the Reformation_, that
Elizabeth visited Eltham and passed some days there in 1559, and that she
made her favourite Sir Christopher Hatton keeper of the royal palace
there.

You should not disturb those books; you will look in vain for the
publication of George III.'s 'Illustration of Shakspeare,' and corrected
in the autograph of the king for a second edition. How remarkable are
the opinions entertained by His Majesty respecting Doctors Johnson and
Franklin, and how c