THE REVIVAL OF SCIENCE 285 



ficiencies of the Stewart kings, no one of them 



lacked intelligence in things artistic and scientific. 



The pictures at Windsor and at Buckingham 



Palace which the nation owes to Charles I. and 



Charles II. are only approached by those it 



owes to the knowledge and taste of Queen Victoria's 



consort. At Whitehall, Charles II. had his " little 



elaboratory, under his closet, a pretty place/'* 



and was working there but a day or two before 



his death, his illness disinclining him for his 



wonted exercise. The King took a curious interest 



in anatomy ; on May nth, 1663, Pierce, the 



surgeon, tells Pepys " that the other day Dr. 



Clerke and he did dissect two bodies, a man 



and a . woman, before the King with which the 



King was highly pleased/' Pepys also records, 



February I7th, 1662-3, on the authority of 



Edward Pickering, another story of a dissection 



in the royal closet by the King's own hands. 



It has, I think, seldom been pointed out that 

 Charles II /s ancestry accounts for many of his 

 qualities and especially for his interest in science. 

 He was very unlike his father, but his mother 

 was the daughter of a Medici princess, and the 



* Pepys, January i6th, 1669. 



