It is no doubt correctly conjectured by Sir Bulwer Lytton, that many subjects in tapestry (not Scriptural) have their explanation in Plutarch, the fashionable classic source of tale and legend for our fathers of the middle ages. Shakspeare, it need scarcely be observed, depends on him for all his classic plots; and he was no less a favourite on the Continent than with us. If you observe the attitude and expression of Cleopatra, for so we will consider her, you will perceive that there is something impressive, as well as smiling, about her which would suit the words she is supposed to have uttered, when she had laughed sufficiently at the trick she played him, and which, to the best of my recollection, ran thus, “Leave fishing to us smaller potentates; your angling should be for cities and kingdoms.” Every article of the furniture merits your attention. Here is a Venetian chair; {236} it is one of a set of twenty-six, with a sofa, brought from the Gradenigo Palace, and is carved and gilt all over,—the back, and seat, and cushions for the arms, being Genoa red velvet. [Picture: Venetian chair] Fourteen of these chairs, with the sofa, are in this room; the other twelve were purchased by the Earl of Lonsdale. Vases of Dresden china, marqueterie tables, and a shrine (see page 237) of gilt carved work at one end of the room, reflected in mirrors of gigantic dimensions, dazzle the senses; and its ceiling studded with blue and gold pendants, and its walls all painted over with quaint devices like the pages of a missal. Also a magnificent Gothic chimney-piece (see page 238) of Carrara marble, fitted with brass-work of ormolu and chimney-glass. The chimney was removed from the grand Gothic-room at Carlton House, and cost George IV. many hundred pounds. Indeed the drawing-room of the Pryor’s Bank seems to be more like some scene in an enchanted palace, than in an every-day residence upon the bank of the river Thames. [Picture: Shrine] The ante-room is not less splendidly furnished. Its ceiling is even more elaborately embellished than that of the drawing-room, for the heads of mitred abbots, jolly monks, and demure nuns look down upon us from each intersection of the groining. A Florentine cabinet (see page 239), of mosaic work in lapis lazuli, pietra dura, topaz, agates, etc., one of the finest specimens of the kind ever seen,—it eventually came into the possession of Mr. Hurst, who asked fifteen hundred [Picture: Gothic Chimney-piece] guineas for it—a magnificent carved oak chimney-piece (see page 240); chairs which belonged to Queen Elizabeth; and among other pictures, an undoubted one by Janssen, of “Charles II. dancing at the Hague,” must not detain us, although it be a duplicate of the celebrated picture in the possession of Her Majesty, with which the history of this is completely identical, both having been purchased from the same individual at the same period.