To Take A View Of Every
Room In The House One Must Make Account To Go Ten Miles; There Is
A
vault called the Pantheon under the high altar, which is all paved,
walled, and arched with marble; there be
A number of huge silver
candlesticks taller than I am; lamps three yards compass, and diverse
chalices and crosses of massive gold; there is one choir made all of
burnished brass; pictures and statues like giants; and a world of
glorious things that purely ravished me. By this mighty monument it may
be inferred that Philip the Second, though he was a little man, yet he
had vast gigantic thoughts in him, to leave such a huge pile for
posterity to gaze upon and admire in his memory."
III
Perhaps this description is not very exact, but precision of statement
is not to be expected of a Welshman; and if Howell preferred to say
Philip built the place in fulfilment of that vow at the battle of St.
Quentin, doubtless he believed it; many others did; it has only of late
been discovered that Philip was not at St. Quentin, and did not "batter
a monastery of St. Lawrence friars" there. I like to think the rest is
all as Howell says down to the man and mule for every monk. If there are
no men and mules left, there are very few monks either, after the many
suppressions of convents. The gardens are there of an unquestionable
symmetry and beauty, and the "company of craggy hills" abides all round
the prodigious edifice, which is at once so prodigious, and grows larger
upon you in the retrospect.
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