ignorant of it.

The other of the cartoons are exceeding fine but I mention these as
the particular two which are most lively, which strike the fancy
the soonest at first view. It is reported, but with what truth I
know not, that the late French king offered an hundred thousand
LOUIS D'ORS for these pictures; but this, I say, is but a report.
The king brought a great many other fine pieces to England, and
with them the love of fine paintings so universally spread itself
among the nobility and persons of figure all over the kingdom that
it is incredible what collections have been made by English
gentlemen since that time, and how all Europe has been rummaged, as
we may say, for pictures to bring over hither, where for twenty
years they yielded the purchasers, such as collected them for sale,
immense profit. But the rates are abated since that, and we begin
to be glutted with the copies and frauds of the Dutch and Flemish
painters who have imposed grossly upon us. But to return to the
palace of Hampton Court. Queen Mary lived not to see it completely
finished, and her death, with the other difficulties of that reign,
put a stop to the works for some time till the king, reviving his
good liking of the place, set them to work again, and it was
finished as we see it. But I have been assured that had the peace
continued, and the king lived to enjoy the continuance of it, his
Majesty had resolved to have pulled down all the remains of the old
building (such as the chapel and the large court within the first
gate), and to have built up the whole palace after the manner of
those two fronts already done. In these would have been an entire
set of rooms of state for the receiving and, if need had been,
lodging and entertaining any foreign prince with his retinue; also
offices for all the Secretaries of State, Lords of the Treasury,