, Sir John Harrington, having offended her
delicacy by translating some of the licentious passages of the Orlando Furioso,
she imposed on him, as a penance, the task of rendering the whole poem into
English.
 
23 In revising this work, I have had the means of making some accurate additions
to my attempt to describe the princely pleasures of Kenilworth, by the kindness
of my friend William Hamper, Esq., who had the goodness to communicate to me an
inventory of the furniture of Kenilworth in the days of the magnificent Earl of
Leicester. I have adorned the text with some of the splendid articles mentioned
in the inventory, but antiquaries, especially, will be desirous to see a more
full specimen than the story leaves room for.
 
                Extracts from Kenilworth Inventory, A. D. 1584.
 
A Salte, ship-fashion, of the mother of perle, garnished with silver and divers
workes, warlike ensignes, and ornaments, with xyj peeces of ordinance, whereof
ij on wheles, two anckers on the foreparte, and on the stearne the image of Dame
Fortune standing on a globe with a flag in her hand. Pois xxxij oz.
A gilte salte like a swann, mother of perle. Pois xxx oz. iij quarters.
A George on horseback, of wood, painted and gilt, with a case for knives in the
tayle of the horse, and a case for oyster knives in the brest of the Dragon.
A green barge-cloth, embroider'd with white lions and beares.
A perfuming pann, of silver. Pois xix oz.
In the halle. Tabells, long and short, vj. Formes, long and short, xiiij.
 
                                   Hangings.
 
              (These are minutely specified, and consisted of the
          following subjects, in tapestry, and gilt and red leather.)
 
Flowers, beasts, and pillars arched. Forest worke. Historie. Storie of Susanna,
the Prodigall Childe, Saule, Tobie, Hercules, Lady Fame, Hawking and Hunting,
Jezabell, Judith and Holofernes, David, Abraham, Sampson, Hippolitus, Alexander
the Great, Naaman the Assyrian, Jacob, etc.
 
                         Bedsteds with their Furniture.
 
(These are magnificent and numerous. I shall copy, verbatim, the description of
                  what appears to have been one of the best.)
 
A bedsted of wallnut-tree, toppe fashion, the pillers redd and varnished, the
ceelor, tester, and single vallance of crimson sattin, paned with a broad border
of bone lace of golde and silver. The tester richlie embrothered with my Lo.
armes in a garland of hoppes, roses, and pomegranetts, and lyned