"Some did. The melancholy water-fowl from Astracan was bestowed by the Russian Ambassador; and certain merchants who came for justice brought us the cranes and the milk-white raven. But the animals that it was needful to put in to make the place answerable to its design,—the antelopes, and the Guinea goats, and the Arabian sheep, and others,—cost nearly their weight of gold. Kings cannot make fair bargains." “For aught but necessaries,” interposed the divine. "Or for necessaries. Windsor is exceedingly ragged and ruinous. It will occupy the cost of Dunkirk to restore it——" “According to the taste of the ladies of the court,” interrupted the Duke. “They will have the gallery of horns furnished with beams of the rarest elks and antelopes that there be in the world. Then the hall and stairs must be bright with furniture of arms, in festoons, trophy-like: while the chambers have curious and effeminate pictures, giving a contrast of softness to that which presented only war and horror.” “Then there is the demolishing of the palace at Greenwich, in order to build a new one. Besides the cost of rearing, we are advised so to make a cut as to let in the Thames like a square bay, which will be chargeable.” “And this is to be ordered by Parliament? or are the people to be told that a foreign possession of theirs is gone to pay for water-fowl and effeminate pictures?” “Then there is the army,” continued the King. “I have daily news of a lack of hospitals, so that our maimed soldiers die of the injuries of the air. And this very defeat, with which the city will presently be ringing, was caused by the failure of ammunition. And not unknowingly; for this young clerk had the audacity to forewarn us.” “Better have sold the troops and their general alive into the hands of the enemy, than send them into the field without a sufficiency of defence,” cried Dr. Reede. “So his Majesty thinks,” observed the Duke; “and has therefore done wisely in taking a goodly sum from the Dutch to delay the sailing of the fleet for the east till the season is too far gone for action. Nay! is it not a benefit for the King to have the money he so much needs, and for the lives to be saved which must be otherwise lost for want of the due ammunition?” Dr. Reede was too much affected at this gross bartering away of the national honour to trust himself to speak; Edmund observed that he should insist, in his pamphlet, on the exceeding expensiveness of war in these days, in comparison of the times when men went out, each with his bow and arrow, or his battle-axe, and his provision of food furnished at his own charge. Since gunpowder had been used, and engines of curious workmanship,—since war had become a science, it had grown mightily expensive, and the people must pay accordingly, as he should speedily set forth. “Setting forth also how the people should therefore be the more consulted, before a strife is entered upon,” said the clergyman.