es of painting, were to be placed
in the great gallery. The idea also was entertained of appropriating
one of the large halls below, with the floor above, to the purposes
of a museum of models and specimens of all the most curious machines
destined to be used in war, the arts, and different trades, and in
all sorts of exercises, noble, liberal, or mechanical, in order that
those who sought; perfection might come and without trouble instruct
themselves in this silent school. The lower story would have served
for the heavier things, and the higher for the lighter. An exact
inventory of both was to have been amongst the documents of the
cabinet of which I am speaking.

"Lists of all the benefices of the kingdom, with their denomination
and just appreciation, reports of the whole ecclesiastical body,
secular and regular, from the highest prelate to the lowest clerk,
with the distinction of native and foreigner, and of both religions,
would not have been amongst the least curious documents of those
referring to the ecclesiastical government.

"'This labour was the model of another affecting the police, by which
the king would have been able to see, to an individual, the number of
the nobility of the whole realm, divided into classes, and specified
by the difference of titles, estates, &c.; an idea the more agreeable
to the King, as he had been meditating for a long time the plan of a
new order of knighthood, together with that of an academy, a college,
and a royal hospital, destined for the nobility alone, without this
useful and honourable institution being chargeable to the public or
burdensome to the finances. It was proposed at the same time to form
a camp or permanent corps of six thousand infantry, a thousand horse,
and six pieces of artillery, completely equipped. Twelve ships and
twelve galleys kept in good order, corresponded in the naval
department to this new military establishment.

The close of this glorious and beneficent reign is thus described:--

"Certain it is that Henry's mind was filled with gloomy anticipations
which neither business nor pleasure could banish; for the moment he
was unoccupied dark and bitter meditations fell upon him, from which
he found it impossible to rouse himself. Intimations of coming
danger, too, were frequent;