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than the severities of the law, put an end to this pernicious practice.The nobility, instead of vying with each other in the number and bold-ness of their retainers, acquired by degrees a more civilised species ofemulation, and endeavoured to excel in the splendour of their equipage,houses, and tables. The common people, no longer maintained invicious idleness by their superiors, were obliged to learn some callingor industry, and became useful both to themselves and to others. Andit must be acknowledged, in spite of those who declaim so violentlyagainst refinement in the arts, or what they are pleased to call luxury,that as much as an industrious tradesman is both a better man and abetter citizen than one of those idle retainers who formerly depended onthe great families, so much is the life of a modern nobleman morelaudable than that of an ancient baron.”

Henry was himself a great builder; * and with him, and not on thedissolution of the monasteries, began that style of house-building whichit is the purpose of this volume to illustrate.

In his reign, among many other edifices, the palace of Richmond wasrebuilt after the fire; the “ goodly hospital of the Savoy, near CharingCross,” finished, and Eltham much enlarged ; all of a similar externalcharacter, and that character differing widely from the ecclesiastical andthe castellated, although some parts of the interiors retained featureswhich appertained to the convent and the castle.t The mansions of this

Gardiner, the prelate, had two hundred retainers. The Duke of Norfolk, in the latter reign,was allowed one hundred ; and Archbishop Parker forty.—S tripe.

The custom of giving badges to menial servants was continued even so late as James I. :—

“ Attending him he had some five men; their cognizance, as I remember, was a peacockwithout a tayle.”— Green’s Quip for an Upstart Courtier.

* Walpole says, “ genius had no favour from him; he reigned as an attorney would havereigned,and would have preferred a conveyancer to Praxiteles .”— Anecd.of Painting,yol. iii. p. 47.t See Illustrations.