The queen's joiner had
contrived in one of Glumdalclitch's rooms, a kind of wooden machine,
five-and-twenty feet high, formed like a standing ladder; the steps were
each fifty feet long: it was indeed a movable pair of stairs, the lowest
end placed at ten feet distance from the wall of the chamber. The book I
had a mind to read was put up leaning against the wall: I first mounted
to the upper step of the ladder, and turning my face towards the book
began at the top of the page, and so walking to the right and left about
eight or ten paces, according to the length of the lines, till I had
gotten a little below the level of mine eyes, and then descending
gradually, till I came to the bottom: after which I mounted again, and
began the other page in the same manner, and so turned over the leaf,
which I could easily do with both my hands, for it was as thick and
stiff as a paste-board, and in the largest folios not above eighteen or
twenty feet long.
Their style is clear, masculine, and smooth, but not florid; for they
avoid nothing more than multiplying unnecessary words, or using various
expressions. I have perused many of their books, especially those in
history and morality. Among the rest, I was much diverted with a little
old treatise, which always lay in Glumdalclitch's bed-chamber, and
belonged to her governess, a grave elderly gentlewoman, who dealt in
writings of morality and devotion.
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