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.