It does great credit to the head and heart
of Dr. Parr. Thus the reader will observe that no small interest
is attached to the volume from which the ensuing extracts are
made: a volume, full, doubtless, of extensive and learned
research, and exhibiting a style remarkable alike for its
consummate art and harmonious copiousness."
* * * * *
WEALTH OF HENRY VII.
The hoard amassed by Henry, and "most of it under his own key and
keeping, in secret places at Richmond," is said to have amounted to near
1,800,000 l., which, according to our former conjectures, would be
equivalent to about 16,000,000 l.; an amount of specie so immense as to
warrant a suspicion of exaggeration, in an age when there was no control
from public documents on a matter of which the writers of history were
ignorant. Our doubts of the amount amassed by Henry are considerably
warranted by the computation of Sir W. Petty, who, a century and a half
later, calculated the whole specie of England at only 6,000,000 l.--This
hoard, whatever may have been its precise extent, was too great to be
formed by frugality, even under the penurious and niggardly Henry.
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