The table was loaded with huge
folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and,
amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft,
were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as
he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general
pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds,
and remedies against canine madness.
The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-
proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly
protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his
figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-
coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-
horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust,
but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue
velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a
heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical
moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this
highly honoured feather.
But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward
types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a
subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a
problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without
possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases,
without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to
maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that,
and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold
asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled
on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always
outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been
easy.
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