l extracts. It was at length
translated from the Italian MS. and published by the Rev. Joseph
Berington; a curious piece of our own secret history.]
[Footnote 191: Hume's "History of England," vii. 842. His authority is
the "Parl. Hist." xix. 88.]
[Footnote 192: Whitelocke's "Memorials."]
[Footnote 193: Harl. MSS. 4898.]
[Footnote 194: One of these pictures, "A Concert," is now in our
National Gallery.]
[Footnote 195: They were secured by Cromwell, who had intended to
reproduce the designs at the tapestry-factory established in Mortlake,
but the troubles of the kingdom hindered it. Charles II. very nearly
sold them to France; Lord Danby intercepted the sale; when they were
packed away in boxes, until the time of William III., who built the
gallery at Hampton Court expressly for their exhibition.]
[Footnote 196: This picture is now one of the ornaments of Windsor
Castle.]
[Footnote 197: These would appear to be copies of Andrea Mantegna's
"Triumphs of Julius Caesar," the cartoons of which are still in the
galleries of Hampton Court.]
[Footnote 198: Some may be curious to learn the price of gold and silver
about 1650. It appears by this manuscript inventory that the silver sold
at 4s. 11d. per oz. and gold at L3 10s.; so that the value of these
metals has little varied during the last century and a half.]
[Footnote 199: This poem is omitted in the great edition of the king's
works, published after the Restoration; and was given by Burnet from a
manuscript of his "Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton;" but it had been
previously published in Perrenchief's "Life of Charles the First." It
has been suspected that this poem is a pious fraud, and put forth in the
king's name--as likewise was the "Eikon Basilike." One point I have
since ascertained is, that Charles did write verses, as rugged as some
of these. And in respect to the book, notwithstanding the artifice and
the interpolations of Gauden, I believe that there are some passages
which Charles only could have written.]
[Footnote 200: This article was composed without any recollection that a
part of the subject had been anticipated by Lord Orford. In the
"Anecdotes of Painting in England," many curious particulars are
noticed: the story of the king's diamond seal had reached his lordship,
and Vertue had a mutilated transcript of the inventory of the king's
pictures, &c., discovered in Moorfields; for, among others, more than
thirty pages at the beginnin
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