[Footnote D: It is observed, in the same life, that his mortgages, and statutes, and his judgments were so numerous, that his papers would have made a good map of England. A view of the chamber of this usurer is preserved by Massinger, who can only be understood by the modern reader in Mr. Gifford's edition:—
Here lay
A manor, bound fast in a skin of parchment;
Here a sure deed of gift for a market-town,
If not redeem'd this day, which is not in
The unthrift's purse; there being scarce one shire
In Wales or England, where my monies are not
Lent out at usury, the certain hook
To draw in more.
MASSINGER'S City Madam.]
This crushing usury seemed to them a real calamity; for although in the present extraordinary age of calculations and artificial wealth, we can suffer "a dunghill-breed of men," like Mompesson and his contemptible partner of this reign, to accumulate in a rapid period more than a ducal fortune, without any apparent injury to the public welfare, the result was different then; the legitimate and enlarged principles of commerce were not practised by our citizens in the first era of their prosperity; their absorbing avarice rapidly took in all the exhausting prodigality of the gentry, who were pushed back on the people to prey in their turn on them; those who found their own acres disappearing, became enclosers of commons; this is one of the grievances which Massinger notices, while the writer of the "Five Years of King James" tells us that these discontents between the gentry and the commonalty grew out into a petty rebellion; and it appears by Peyton that "divers of the people were hanged up."
* * * * *
ANECDOTES OF THE MANNERS OF THE AGE.
The minute picture of the domestic manners of this age exhibits the results of those extremes of prodigality and avarice which struck observers in that contracted circle which then constituted society. The king's prodigal dispensations of honours and titles seem at first to have been political; for James was a foreigner, and designed to create a nobility, as likewise an inferior order, who might feel a personal attachment for the new monarch; but the facility by which titles were acquired, was one cause which occasioned so many to crowd to the metropolis to enjoy their airy honour by a substantial ruin; knighthood had become so common, that some of the most infamous and criminal characters of this age we find in that rank.[A] The young females, driven to necessity by the fashionable ostentation of their parents, were brought to the metropolis as to a market; "where," says a contemporary, "they obtained pensions, or sometimes marriages, by their beauty." When Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, passed to his house, the ladies were at their balconies on the watch, to make themselves known to him; and it appears that every one of those ladies had sold their favours at a dear rate. Among these are some, "who pretending to be wits, as they called them," says Arthur Wilson,[B] "or had handsome nieces or daughters, drew a great resort to their houses." And it appears that Gondomar, to prevent these conversaziones from too freely touching on Spanish politics, sweetened their silence by his presents.[C] The same grossness of manners was among the higher females of the age; when we see that grave statesman, Sir Dudley Carleton, narrating the adventures of a bridal night, and all "the petty sorceries," the romping of the "great ladies, who were made shorter by the skirts," we discover their coarse tastes; but when we find the king going to the bed of the bride in his nightgown, to give a reveille-matin, and remaining a good time in or upon the bed, "Choose which you will believe;" this bride was not more decent than the ladies who publicly, on their balconies, were soliciting the personal notice of Gondomar.
[Footnote A: A statesman may read with advantage Sir Edward Walker on "The inconveniences that have attended the frequent promotions to Titles, since King James came to the crown." Sir Edward appears not to disapprove of these promotions during the first ten years of his reign, but "when alliance to a favourite, riches though gotten in a shop, persons of private estates, and of families whose fathers would have thought themselves highly honoured to have been but knights in Queen Elizabeth's time, were advanced, then the fruits began to appear. The greater nobility were undervalued; the ancient baronage saw inferior families take precedency over them; nobility lost its respect, and a parity in conversation was introduced which in English dispositions begot contempt; the king could not employ them all; some grew envious, some factious, some ingrateful, however obliged, by being once denied."—P. 302.]
[Footnote B: One may conjecture, by this expression, that the term of "wits" was then introduced, in the sense we now use it.]
[Footnote C: Wilson has preserved a characteristic trait of one of the lady wits. When Gondomar one day, in Drury-lane, was passing Lady Jacob's house, she, exposing herself for a salutation from him, he bowed, but in return she only opened her mouth, gaping on him. This was again repeated the following day, when he sent a gentleman to complain of her incivility. She replied, that he had purchased some favours of the ladies at a dear rate, and she had a mouth to be stopped as well as others.]
This coarseness of manners, which still prevailed in the nation, as it had in the court of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, could not but influence the familiar style of their humour and conversation. James I., in the Edict on Duels, employs the expression of our dearest bedfellow to designate the queen; and there was no indelicacy attached to this singular expression. Much of that silly and obscene correspondence of James with Buckingham, while it adds one more mortifying instance of "the follies of the wise," must be attributed to this cause.[A] Are not most of the dramatic works of that day frequently unreadable from this circumstance? As an historian, it would be my duty to show how incredibly gross were the domestic language and the domestic familiarities of kings, queens, lords, and ladies, which were much like the lowest of our populace. We may felicitate ourselves on having escaped the grossness, without, however, extending too far these self-congratulations.
[Footnote A: Our wonder and surmises have been often raised at the strange subscriptions of Buckingham to the king,—"Your dog," and James as ingenuously calling him "dog Steenie." But this was not peculiar to Buckingham; James also called the grave Cecil his "little beagle." The Earl of Worcester, writing to Cecil, who had succeeded in his search after one Bywater, the earl says, "If the king's beagle can hunt by land as well as he hath done by water, we will leave capping of Jowler, and cap the beagle." The queen, writing to Buckingham to intercede with the king for Rawleigh's life, addresses Buckingham by "My kind Dog." James appears to have been always playing on some whimsical appellative by which he characterised his ministers and favourites, analogous to the notions of a huntsman. Many of our writers, among them Sir Walter Scott, have strangely misconceived these playful appellatives, unconscious of the origin of this familiar humour. The age was used to the coarseness. We did not then excel all Europe, as Addison set the model, in the delicacy of humour; indeed, even so late as Congreve's time, they were discussing its essential distinction from wit.]
The men were dissolved in all the indolence of life and its wantonness; they prided themselves in traducing their own innocence rather than suffer a lady's name to pass unblemished.[B] The marriage-tie lost its sacredness amid these disorders of social life. The luxurious idlers of that day were polluted with infamous vices; and Drayton, in the "Moon-calf," has elaborately drawn full-length pictures of the lady and the gentleman of that day, which seem scarcely to have required the darkening tints of satire to be hideous—in one line the Muse describes "the most prodigious birth"—
He's too much woman and She's too much man.
[Footnote B. The expression of one of these gallants, as preserved by
Wilson, cannot be decently given, but is more expressive, p. 147.]
The trades of foppery, in Spanish fashions, suddenly sprung up in this reign, and exhibited new names and new things. Now silk and gold-lace shops first adorned Cheapside, which the continuator of Stowe calls "the beauty of London;" the extraordinary rise in price of these fashionable articles forms a curious contrast with those of the preceding reign. Scarfs, in Elizabeth's time, of thirty shillings value, were now wrought up to as many pounds; and embroidered waistcoats, which in the queen's reign no workman knew how to make worth five pounds, were now so rich and curious as to be cheapened at forty. Stowe has recorded a revolution in shoe-buckles, portentously closing in shoe-roses, which were puffed knots of silk, or of precious embroidery, worn even by men of mean rank, at the cost of more than five pounds, who formerly had worn gilt copper shoe-buckles.
In the new and ruinous excess of the use of tobacco, many consumed three or four hundred pounds a year. James, who perceived the inconveniences of this sudden luxury in the nation, tried to discountenance it, although the purpose went to diminish his own scanty revenue. Nor was this attack on the abuse of tobacco peculiar to his majesty, although he has been so ridiculed for it; a contemporary publication has well described the mania and its consequences: "The smoak of fashion hath quite blown away the smoak of hospitalitie, and turned the chimneys of their forefathers into the noses of their children."[A] The king also reprobated the finical embarrassments of the new fashions, and seldom wore new clothes. When they brought him a Spanish hat, he flung it away with scorn, swearing he never loved them nor their fashions; and when they put roses on his shoes, he swore too, "that they should not make him a ruffe-footed dove; a yard of penny ribbon would serve that turn."
[Footnote A: The "Peace-Maker," 1618.]
The sudden wealth which seems to have rushed into the nation in this reign of peace, appeared in massy plate and jewels, and in "prodigal marriage-portions, which were grown in fashion among the nobility and gentry, as if the skies had rained plenty." Such are the words of Hacket, in his "Memorial of the Lord-Keeper Williams." Enormous wealth was often accumulated. An usurer died worth 400,000_l_.; Sir Thomas Compton, a citizen, left, it is said, 800,000_l_., and his heir was so overcome with this sudden irruption of wealth, that he lost his senses; and Cranfield, a citizen, became the Earl of Middlesex.
The continued peace, which produced this rage for dress, equipage, and magnificence, appeared in all forms of riot and excess; corruption bred corruption. The industry of the nation was not the commerce of the many, but the arts of money-traders, confined to the suckers of the state; and the unemployed and dissipated, who were every day increasing the population in the capital, were a daring petulant race, described by a contemporary as "persons of great expense, who, having run themselves into debt, were constrained to run into faction; and defend themselves from the danger of the law."[A] These appear to have enlisted under some show of privilege among the nobility; and the metropolis was often shaken by parties, calling themselves Roaring-boys, Bravadoes, Roysters, and Bonaventures.[B] Such were some of the turbulent children of peace, whose fiery spirits, could they have found their proper vent, had been soldiers of fortune, as they were younger brothers, distressed often by their own relatives; and wards ruined by their own guardians;[C] all these were clamorous for bold piracies on the Spaniards: a visionary island, and a secret mine, would often disturb the dreams of these unemployed youths, with whom it was no uncommon practice to take a purse on the road. Such felt that—
—in this plenty
And fat of peace, our young men ne'er were train'd
To martial discipline, and our ships unrigg'd
Rot in the harbour.
MASSINGER.
[Footnote A: "Five Years of King James." Harl. Misc.]
[Footnote B: A. Wilson's "Hist. of James I." p. 28.]
[Footnote C: That ancient oppressive institution of the Court of Wards then existed; and Massinger, the great painter of our domestic manners in this reign, has made it the subject of one of his interesting dramas.]
The idleness which rusts quiet minds effervesces in fiery spirits pent up together; and the loiterers in the environs of a court, surfeiting with peace, were quick at quarrel. It is remarkable, that in the pacific reign of James I. never was so much blood shed in brawls, nor duels so tremendously barbarous. Hume observed this circumstance, and attributes it to "the turn that the romantic chivalry, for which the nation was formerly so renowned, had lately taken." An inference probably drawn from the extraordinary duel between Sir Edward Sackville, afterwards Lord Dorset, and the Lord Bruce.[A] These two gallant youths had lived as brothers, yet could resolve not to part without destroying each other; the narrative so wonderfully composed by Sackville, still makes us shudder at each blow received and given. Books were published to instruct them by a system of quarrelling, "to teach young gentlemen when they are beforehand and when behindhand;" thus they incensed and incited those youths of hope and promise, whom Lord Bacon, in his charge on duelling, calls, in the language of the poet, Auroræ filii, the sons of the morning,—who often were drowned in their own blood! But, on a nearer inspection, when we discover the personal malignity of these hasty quarrels, the coarseness of their manners, and the choice of weapons and places in their mode of butchering each other, we must confess that they rarely partake of the spirit of chivalry. One gentleman biting the ear of a Templar, or switching a poltroon lord; another sending a challenge to fight in a saw-pit; or to strip to their shirts, to mangle each other, were sanguinary duels, which could only have fermented in the disorders of the times, amid that wanton pampered indolence which made them so petulant and pugnacious. Against this evil his Majesty published a voluminous edict, which exhibits many proofs that it was the labour of his own hand, for the same dignity, the same eloquence, the same felicity of illustration, embellish the state-papers;[B] and to remedy it, James, who rarely consented to shed blood, condemned an irascible lord to suffer the ignominy of the gallows.
[Footnote A: It may be found in the popular pages of the "Guardian;" there first printed from a MS. in the library of the Harleys.]
[Footnote B: "A publication of his Majestie's edict and seuere censure against private combats and combatants, &c." 1613. It is a volume of about 150 pages. As a specimen of the royal style, I transcribe two passages:—
"The pride of humours, the libertie of times, the conniuencie of magistrates, together with a kind of prescription of impunity, hath bred ouer all this kingdome, not only an opinion among the weakest, but a constant beleefe among many that desire to be reputed among the wisest, of a certain freedome left to all men vpon earth by nature, as their birth-right to defend their reputations with their swords, and to take reuenge of any wrong either offered or apprehended, in that measure which their owne inward passion or affection doth suggest, without any further proofe; so as the challenge be sent in a civil manner, though without leave demanded of the sovereign," &c.
The king employs a bold and poetical metaphor to describe duelling—to turn this hawk into a singing-bird, clip its wings, and cage it. "By comparing forraine mischiefes with home-bred accidents, it will not be hard to judge into what region this bolde bird of audacious presumption, in dealing blowes so confidently, will mount, if it bee once let flie, from the breast wherein it lurkes. And therefore it behoveth justice both to keep her still in her own close cage, with care that she learn neuer any other dittie then Est bene; but withall, that for preuention of the worst that may fall out, wee clippe her wings, that they grow not too fast. For according to that of the proverb, It is labour lost to lay nets before the eyes of winged fowles," &c. p. 13.]
But, while extortion and monopoly prevailed among the monied men, and a hollow magnificence among the gentry, bribery had tainted even the lords. All were hurrying on in a stream of venality, dissipation, and want; and the nation, amid the prosperity of the kingdom in a long reign of peace, was nourishing in its breast the secret seeds of discontent and turbulence.
From the days of Elizabeth to those of the Charleses, Cabinet transmitted to Cabinet the caution to preserve the kingdom from the evils of an overgrown metropolis. A political hypochondriacism: they imagined the head was becoming too large for the body, drawing to itself all the moisture of life from the middle and the extremities. A statute against the erection of new buildings was passed by Elizabeth; and from James to his successors proclamations were continually issued to forbid any growth of the city. This singular prohibition may have originated in their dread of infection from the plague, but it certainly became the policy of a weak and timid government, who dreaded, in the enlargement of the metropolis, the consequent concourse of those they designated as "masterless men,"—sedition was as contagious as the plague among the many. But proclamations were not listened to nor read; houses were continually built, for they were in demand,—and the esquires, with their wives and daughters, hastened to gay or busy London, for a knighthood, a marriage, or a monopoly. The government at length were driven to the desperate "Order in Council" to pull down all new houses within ten miles of the metropolis—and further, to direct the Attorney-General to indict all those sojourners in town who had country houses, and mulct them in ruinous fines. The rural gentry were "to abide in their own counties, and by their housekeeping in those parts were to guide and relieve the meaner people according to the ancient usage of the English nation." The Attorney-General, like all great lawyers, looking through the spectacles of his books, was short-sighted to reach to the new causes and the new effects which were passing around. The wisest laws are but foolish when Time, though not the lawyers, has annulled them. The popular sympathy was, however, with the Attorney-General, for it was imagined that the country was utterly ruined and depopulated by the town.
And so in the view it appeared, and so all the satirists chorused! for in the country the ancient hospitality was not kept up; the crowd of retainers had vanished, the rusty chimneys of the mansion-house hardly smoked through a Christmas week, while in London all was exorbitantly prosperous; masses of treasure were melted down into every object of magnificence. "And is not this wealth drawn from our acres?" was the outcry of the rural censor. Yet it was clear that the country in no way was impoverished, for the land rose in price; and if manors sometimes changed their lords, they suffered no depreciation. A sudden wealth was diffused in the nation; the arts of commerce were first advancing; the first great ship launched for an Indian voyage, was then named the "Trade's Increase." The town, with its multiplied demands, opened a perpetual market for the country. The money-traders were breeding their hoards as the graziers their flocks; and while the goldsmiths' shops blazed in Cheap, the agriculturists beheld double harvests cover the soil. The innumerable books on agriculture published during these twenty years of peace is an evidence of the improvement of the country—sustained by the growing capitals of the men in trade. In this progress of domestic conveniency to metropolitan luxury, there was a transition of manners; new objects and new interests, and new modes of life, yet in their incipient state.
The evils of these luxuriant times were of quick growth; and, as fast as they sprung, the Father of his people encountered them by his proclamations, which, during long intervals of parliamentary recess, were to be enforced as laws: but they passed away as morning dreams over a happy, but a thoughtless and wanton people.
* * * * *
JAMES THE FIRST DISCOVERS THE DISORDERS AND DISCONTENTS OF A PEACE OF MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS.
The king was himself amazed at the disorders and discontents he at length discovered; and, in one of his later speeches, has expressed a mournful disappointment:
"And now, I confess, that when I looked before upon the face of the government, I thought, as every man would have done, that the people were never so happy as in my time; but even, as at divers times I have looked upon many of my coppices, riding about them, and they appeared, on the outside, very thick and well-grown unto me, but, when I turned into the midst of them, I found them all bitten within, and full of plains and bare spots; like the apple or pear, fair and smooth without, but when you cleave it asunder, you find it rotten at heart. Even so this kingdom, the external government being as good as ever it was, and I am sure as learned judges as ever it had, and I hope as honest administering justice within it; and for peace, both at home and abroad, more settled, and longer lasting, than ever any before; together with as great plenty as ever: so as it may be thought, every man might sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree," &c. &c.[A]
But while we see this king of peace surrounded by national grievances, and that "this fair coppice was very thick and well-grown," yet loud in murmurs, to what cause are we to attribute them? Shall we exclaim with Catharine Macaulay against "the despotism of James," and "the intoxication of his power?"—a monarch who did not even enforce the proclamations or edicts his wisdom dictated;[B] and, as Hume has observed, while vaunting his prerogative, had not a single regiment of guards to maintain it. Must we agree with Hume, and reproach the king with his indolence and lore of amusement—"particularly of hunting?"[C]
[Footnote A: Rushworth, vol. i. p. 29; sub anno 1621.]
[Footnote B: James I. said, "I will never offer to bring a new custom upon my people without the people's consent; like a good physician, tell them what is amiss, if they will not concur to amend it, yet I have discharged my part." Among the difficulties of this king was that of being a foreigner, and amidst the contending factions of that day the "British Solomon" seems to have been unjustly reproached for his Scottish partialities.]
[Footnote C: La Boderie, the French Ambassador, complains of the king's frequent absences; but James did not wish too close an intercourse with one who was making a French party about Prince Henry, and whose sole object was to provoke a Spanish war: the king foiled the French intriguer; but has incurred his contempt for being "timid and irresolute." James's cautious neutrality was no merit in the Frenchman's eye.
La Boderie resided at our court from 1606 to 1611, and his "Ambassades," in 5 vols., are interesting in English history. The most satirical accounts of the domestic life of James, especially in his unguarded hours of boisterous merriment, are found in the correspondence of the French ambassadors. They studied to flavour their dish, made of spy and gossip, to the taste of their master. Henry IV. never forgave James for his adherence to Spain and peace, instead of France and warlike designs.]
* * * * *
THE KING'S PRIVATE LIFE IN HIS OCCASIONAL RETIREMENTS.
The king's occasional retirements to Royston and Newmarket have even been surmised to have borne some analogy to the horrid Capræa of Tiberius; but a witness has accidentally detailed the king's uniform life in these occasional seclusions. James I. withdrew at times from public life, but not from public affairs; and hunting, to which he then gave alternate days, was the cheap amusement and requisite exercise of his sedentary habits: but the chase only occupied a few hours. A part of the day was spent by the king in his private studies; another at his dinners, where he had a reader, and was perpetually sending to Cambridge for books of reference: state affairs were transacted at night; for it was observed, at the time, that his secretaries sat up later at night, in those occasional retirements, than when they were at London.[A] I have noticed, that the state papers were composed by himself; that he wrote letters on important occasions without consulting any one; and that he derived little aid from his secretaries. James was probably never indolent; but the uniform life and sedentary habits of literary men usually incur this reproach from those real idlers who bustle in a life of nothingness. While no one loved more the still-life of peace than this studious monarch, whose habits formed an agreeable combination of the contemplative and the active life, study and business—no king more zealously tried to keep down the growing abuses of his government, by personally concerning himself in the protection of the subject.[B]
[Footnote A: Hacket's Scrinia Reserata, Part I. p. 27.]
[Footnote B: As evidences of this zeal for reform, I throw into this note some extracts from the MS. letters of contemporaries.—Of the king's interference between the judges of two courts about prohibitions, Sir Dudley Carleton gives this account:—"The king played the best part in collecting arguments on both sides, and concluded that he saw much endeavour to draw water to their several mills; and advised them to take moderate courses, whereby the good of the subject might be more respected than their particular jurisdictions. The king sat also at the Admiralty, to look himself into certain disorders of government there; he told the lawyers 'he would leave hunting of hares, and hunt them in their quirks and subtilities, with which the subject had been too long abused.'"—MS. Letter of Sir Dudley Carleton.
In "Winwood's Memorials of State" there is a letter from Lord Northampton, who was present at one of these strict examinations of the king; and his language is warm with admiration: the letter being a private one, can hardly be suspected of court flattery. "His Majesty hath in person, with the greatest dexterity of wit and strength of argument that mine ears ever heard, compounded between the parties of the civil and ecclesiastical courts, who begin to comply, by the king's sweet temper, on points that were held to be incompatible."—Winwood's Mem. iii. p. 54.
In his progresses through the country, if any complained of having received injury from any of the court, the king punished, or had satisfaction made to the wronged, immediately.]
* * * * *
DISCREPANCIES OF OPINION AMONG THE DECRIERS OF JAMES THE FIRST.
Let us detect, among the modern decriers of the character of James I., those contradictory opinions, which start out in the same page; for the conviction of truth flashed on the eyes of those who systematically vilified him, and must often have pained them; while it embarrassed and confused those, who, being of no party, yet had adopted the popular notions. Even Hume is at variance with himself; for he censures James for his indolence, "which prevented him making any progress in the practice of foreign politics, and diminished that regard which all the neighbouring nations had paid to England during the reign of his predecessor," p. 29. Yet this philosopher observes afterwards, on the military character of Prince Henry, at p. 63, that "had he lived, he had probably promoted the glory; perhaps not the felicity, of his people. The unhappy prepossession of men in favour of ambition, &c., engages them into such pursuits as destroy their own peace, and that of the rest of mankind." This is true philosophy, however politicians may comment, and however the military may command the state. Had Hume, with all the sweetness of his temper, been a philosopher on the throne, himself had probably incurred the censure he passed on James I. Another important contradiction in Hume deserves detection. The king, it seems, "boasted of his management of Ireland as his masterpiece." According to the accounts of Sir John Davies, whose political works are still read, and whom Hume quotes, James I. "in the space of nine years made greater advances towards the reformation of that kingdom than had been effected in more than four centuries;" on this Hume adds that the king's "vanity in this particular was not without foundation." Thus in describing that wisest act of a sovereign, the art of humanising his ruder subjects by colonisation, so unfortunate is James, that even his most skilful apologist, influenced by popular prepossessions, employs a degrading epithet—and yet he, who had indulged a sarcasm on the vanity of James, in closing his general view of his wise administration in Ireland, is carried away by his nobler feelings. —"Such were the arts," exclaims the historian, "by which James introduced humanity and justice among a people who had ever been buried in the most profound barbarism. Noble cares! much superior to the vain and criminal glory of conquests." Let us add, that had the genius of James the First been warlike, had he commanded a battle to be fought and a victory to be celebrated, popular historians, the panders of ambition, had adorned their pages with bloody trophies; but the peace the monarch cultivated; the wisdom which dictated the plan of civilisation; and the persevering arts which put it into practice—these are the still virtues which give no motion to the spectacle of the historian, and are even forgotten in his pages.
What were the painful feelings of Catharine Macaulay, in summing up the character of James the First. The king has even extorted from her a confession, that "his conduct in Scotland was unexceptionable," but "despicable in his Britannic government." To account for this seeming change in a man who, from his first to his last day, was always the same, required a more sober historian. She tells us also, he affected "a sententious wit;" but she adds, that it consisted "only of quaint and stale conceits." We need not take the word of Mrs. Macaulay, since we have so much of this "sententious wit" recorded, of which probably she knew little. Forced to confess that James's education had been "a more learned one than is usually bestowed on princes," we find how useless it is to educate princes at all; for this "more learned education" made this prince "more than commonly deficient in all the points he pretended to have any knowledge of." This incredible result gives no encouragement for a prince; having a Buchanan for his tutor. Smollett, having compiled the popular accusations of the "vanity, the prejudices, the littleness of soul," of this abused monarch, surprises one in the same page by discovering enough good qualities to make something more than a tolerable king. "His reign, though ignoble to himself, was happy to his people, who were enriched by commerce, felt no severe impositions, while they made considerable progress in their liberties." So that, on the whole, the nation appears not to have had all the reason they have so fully exercised in deriding and vilifying a sovereign, who had made them prosperous at the price of making himself contemptible! I shall notice another writer, of an amiable character, as an evidence of the influence of popular prejudice, and the effect of truth.
When James went to Denmark to fetch his queen, he passed part of his time among the learned; but such was his habitual attention in studying the duties of the sovereign, that he closely attended the Danish courts of justice; and Daines Barrington, in his curious "Observations on the Statutes," mentions, that the king borrowed from the Danish code three statutes for the punishment of criminals. But so provocative of sarcasm is the ill-used name of this monarch, that our author could not but shrewdly observe, that James "spent more time in those courts than in attending upon his destined consort." Yet this is not true: the king was jovial there, and was as indulgent a husband as he was a father. Osborne even censures James for once giving marks of his uxoriousness![A] But while Daines Barrington degrades, by unmerited ridicule, the honourable employment of the "British Solomon," he becomes himself perplexed at the truth that flashes on his eyes. He expresses the most perfect admiration of James the First, whose statutes he declares "deserve much to be enforced; nor do I find any one which hath the least tendency to extend the prerogative, or abridge the liberties and rights of his subjects." He who came to scoff remained to pray. Thus a lawyer, in examining the laws of James the First, concludes by approaching nearer to the truth: the step was a bold one! He says, "It is at present a sort of fashion to suppose that this king, because he was a pedant, had no real understanding, or merit." Had Daines Barrington been asked for proofs of the pedantry of James the First, he had been still more perplexed; but what can be more convincing than a lawyer, on a review of the character of James the First, being struck, as he tells us, by "his desire of being instructed in the English law, and holding frequent conferences for this purpose with the most eminent lawyers,—as Sir Edward Coke, and others!" Such was the monarch whose character was perpetually reproached for indolent habits, and for exercising arbitrary power! Even Mr. Brodie, the vehement adversary of the Stuarts, quotes and admires James's prescient decision on the character of Laud in that remarkable conversation with Buckingham and Prince Charles recorded by Hacket.[B]
[Footnote A: See "Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii. p. 334.]
[Footnote B: Brodie's "History of British Empire," vol. ii. p. 244, 411.]
But let us leave these moderns perpetuating traditional prejudices, and often to the fiftieth echo, still sounding with no voice of its own, to learn what the unprejudiced contemporaries of James I. thought of the cause of the disorders of their age. They were alike struck by the wisdom and the zeal of the monarch, and the prevalent discontents of this long reign of peace. At first, says the continuator of Stowe, all ranks but those "who were settled in piracy," as he designates the cormorants of war, and curiously enumerates their classes, "were right joyful of the peace; but, in a few years afterwards, all the benefits were generally forgotten, and the happiness of the general peace of the most part contemned." The honest annalist accounts for this unexpected result by the natural reflection—"Such is the world's corruption, and man's vile ingratitude."[A] My philosophy enables me to advance but little beyond. A learned contemporary, Sir Symond D'Ewes, in his manuscript diary, notices the death of the monarch, whom he calls "our learned and peaceable sovereign."—"It did not a little amaze me to see all men generally slight and disregard the loss of so mild and gentle a prince, which made me even to feel, that the ensuing times might yet render his loss more sensible, and his memory more dear unto posterity." Sir Symond censures the king for not engaging in the German war to support the Palsgrave, and maintain "the true church of God;" but deeper politicians have applauded the king for avoiding a war, in which he could not essentially have served the interests of the rash prince who had assumed the title of King of Bohemia.[B] "Yet," adds Sir Symond, "if we consider his virtues and his learning, his augmenting the liberties of the English, rather than his oppressing them by any unlimited or illegal taxes and corrosions, his death deserved more sorrow and condolement from his subjects than it found."[C]
[Footnote A: Stowe's Annals, p. 845.]
[Footnote B: See Sir Edward Walker's "Hist. Discourses," p. 321; and Barrington's "Observ. on the Statutes," who says, "For this he deserves the highest praise and commendation from a nation of islanders."]
[Footnote C: Harl. MSS. 646.]
Another contemporary author, Wilson, has not ill-traced the generations of this continued peace—"peace begot plenty, plenty begot ease and wantonness, and ease and wantonness begot poetry, and poetry swelled out into that bulk in this king's time which begot monstrous satyrs." Such were the laseivious times, which dissolving the ranks of society in a general corruption, created on one part the imaginary and unlimited wants of prosperity; and on the other produced the riotous children of indolence, and the turbulent adventurers of want. The rank luxuriance of this reign was a steaming hot-bed of peace, which proved to be the seed-plot of that revolution which was reserved for the unfortunate son.
In the subsequent reign a poet seems to have taken a retrospective view of the age of peace of James I. contemplating on its results in his own disastrous times—
—States that never know
A change but in their growth, which a long peace
Hath brought unto perfection, are like steel,
Which being neglected will consume itself
With its own rust; so doth Security
Eat through the hearts of states, while they are sleeping
And lulled into false quiet.
NABB'S Hannibal and Scipio.
* * * * *
SUMMARY OF HIS CHARACTER.
Thus the continued peace of James I. had calamities of its own! Are we to attribute them to the king? It has been usual with us, in the solemn expiations of our history, to convert the sovereign into the scape-goat for the people; the historian, like the priest of the Hebrews, laying his hands on Azazel,[A] the curses of the multitude are heaped on that devoted head. And thus the historian conveniently solves all ambiguous events.
[Footnote A: The Hebrew name, which Calmet translates Bouc Emissaire, and we Scape Goat, or rather Escape Goat.]
The character of James I. is a moral phenomenon, a singularity of a complex nature. We see that we cannot trust to those modern writers who have passed their censures upon him, however just may be those very censures; for when we look narrowly into their representations, as surely we find, perhaps without an exception, that an invective never closes without some unexpected mitigating circumstance, or qualifying abatement. At the moment of inflicting the censure, some recollection in opposition to what is asserted passes in the mind, and to approximate to Truth, they offer a discrepancy, a self-contradiction. James must always be condemned on a system, while his apology is only allowed the benefit of a parenthesis.
How it has happened that our luckless crowned philosopher has been the common mark at which so many quivers have been emptied, should be quite obvious when so many causes were operating against him. The shifting positions into which he was cast, and the ambiguity of his character, will unriddle the enigma of his life. Contrarieties cease to be contradictions when operated on by external causes.
James was two persons in one, frequently opposed to each other. He was an antithesis in human nature—or even a solecism. We possess ample evidence of his shrewdness and of his simplicity; we find the lofty regal style mingled with his familiar bonhommie. Warm, hasty, and volatile, yet with the most patient zeal to disentangle involved deception; such gravity in sense, such levity in humour; such wariness and such indiscretion; such mystery and such openness—all these must have often thrown his Majesty into some awkward dilemmas. He was a man of abstract speculation in the theory of human affairs; too witty or too aphoristic, he never seemed at a loss to decide, but too careless, perhaps too infirm, ever to come to a decision, he leaned on others. He shrunk from the council-table; he had that distaste for the routine of business which studious sedentary men are too apt to indulge; and imagined that his health, which he said was the health of the kingdom, depended on the alternate days which he devoted to the chase; Royston and Theobalds were more delectable than a deputation from the Commons, or the Court at Whitehall.
It has not always been arbitrary power which has forced the people into the dread circle of their fate, seditions, rebellions, and civil wars; nor always oppressive taxation which has given rise to public grievances. Such were not the crimes of James the First. Amid the full blessings of peace, we find how the people are prone to corrupt themselves, and how a philosopher on the throne, the father of his people, may live without exciting gratitude, and die without inspiring regret—unregarded, unremembered!
INDEX.
ABERNETHY'S opinion of enthusiasm, 145.
ABSTRACTION of mind in great men, 133-136.
ACTORS, traits of character in great, 137.
ADRIAN VI., Pope, persecutes literary men, 18.
ÆSTHETIC Critics, 282.
AKENSIDE on the nature of genius, 30.
ALFIERI, childhood of, 32; loneliness of his character, 96; excited by Plutarch's works, 141.
ANGELO, Michael, illustrates Dante, 21; his ideas of intellectual labour, 85; his reason for a solitary life, 111; his picture of battle of Pisa destroyed by Bandinelli, 158; his elevated character, 252; his letter to Vasari describing the death of his servant, 373.
ANTIPATHIES of men of genius, 160-163.
ANXIETY of genius, 74; of authors and artists over their labours, 80-88.
ARISTOPHANES, popularised by a false preface, 287.
ART FRIENDSHIPS, 209-210.
ARTISTS, "Studies," or first thoughts, 131; their mutual jealousies, 156-158.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY, its interest, 295.
BARRY the painter, his love of ancient literature, 23; his general enthusiasm, 60; his rude eloquence, 107.
BAILLET and his catalogue, 352.
BEATTIE describes the powerful effect on himself of metaphysical study, 147.
BIRCH, Dr., and Robertson the Historian, 342-350.
BOCCACCIO'S friendship for Petrarch, 212-214.
BOOK COLLECTORS, 227-231.
BOOKSELLERS, the test of public opinion, 194.
BOSIUS, his researches in the Roman catacombs, 144.
BOYLE on the disposition of childhood, 31; his advertisement against visitors, n, 113; his idea of a literary retreat, 188.
BRUCE the traveller disbelieved, 78.
BUFFON gives a reason for his fame, 92.
BUONAPARTE revives old military tactics, 266.
BURNS'S diary of the heart, 71.
BURTON, his constitutional melancholy, 220.
BUNYAN a self-taught genius, 60.
BYRON'S loneliness of feeling, n., 96.
CALUMNY frequently attacks genius, 185.
CANTENAC and his autobiography, 296.
CARACCI, the, their unfortunate jealousies, 157.
CASTAGNO murders a rival artist, 157.
CHARLES V., friendship for Titian, 253;
Robertson's life of, 343.
CHATELET, Madame de, a female philosopher and friend of Voltaire, 95.
CHATHAM, Earl of, his constancy of study, 96.
CHENIER a literary fratricide, 173.
CICERO on youthful influence, 32.
CLARENDON, his love of retirement, 111.
COACHES, their first invention, 359.
COAL, its first use as fuel, 362.
COMA VIGIL, a disease produced by study, 147.
COMPOSITION, its toils, 80-81.
CONTEMPORARY criticism, frequently unjust, 75.
CONVERSATIONS of men of genius, 99-109; those who converse well seldom write well, 104.
COTIN, Abbé, troubled by wealth, 188.
CRACHERODE, Rev. C.M., his collections of art and literature, n., 13.
CRITICISM not always just, 65-75.
CURRIE, his idea of the power of genius, 26.
CUVIER'S discoveries in natural history, 145.
DANTE, his great abstraction of mind, 134.
DEATHS of literary men, 243.
DEPRECIATION, theory of, 160.
DIARIES, their value, 122.
DISEASE induced by severe study, 147.
DOMENICHINO poisoned by rivals, 158.
DOMESTIC Novelties at first condemned, 355-364.
DOMESTIC life of literary men, 173-186.
DREAMS of eminent men, 127-128.
DROUAIS an enthusiastic painter, 153.
ENGLAND and its tastes, 264.
FAMILY affection an incentive to genius, 179-182.
FENELON'S early enthusiasm for Greece, 151.
FIRST STUDIES of great men, 55-59; first thoughts for great works, 129-133.
FORKS, when first used, 356.
FRANKLIN, Dr., notes the calming of the sea, 133; his influence on American manners, 272.
FUSELI'S imaginative power, 151.
GALILEO invents the pendulum, 132.
GALVANISM first discovered, 133.
GESNER recommends a study of literature to artists, 22; on enthusiasm, 154; his wife a model for those of literary men, 206-208.
GLEIM and his portrait gallery, 211.
GOLDSMITH contrasted with Johnson, 294.
GOLDONI overworks his mind, 147.
GOVERNMENT of the thoughts, 117.
GRAY'S excitement in composing verse, 141;
GUIBERT, his great work on military tactics, 265.
HABITUAL PURSUITS, their power over the mind, 302-304.
HALLUCINATIONS of genius, 148; realities with some minds, 150.
HAYDN, his regulation of his time, 92.
HELMONT'S (Van) love of study, 152.
HERBERT of Cherbury, Lord, questions the Deity as to the publication of his book, 148.
HOBBES, theory to explain his terror, 150.
HOGARTH, attacks on, n. 87.
HOLLIS, his miserable celibacy, 201.
HONOURS awarded literary men, 249-258.
HORNE (Bishop), his love of literary labour, 135.
HUME the historian, his irritability, 86; unfitted for gay life, 99; gives his reason for literary labour, n. 177; endeavours to correct Robertson, 342.
HUNTER, Dr., fraternal jealousy, 156.
HYPOCHONDRIA, its cause and effect, 150.
IDEALITY defined, 137; its power, 138-154.
INCOMPLETED books, 350-355.
INDUSTRY of great writers, 125.
INFLUENCE of authors, 267-270; 273-277.
INTELLECTUAL nobility, 250.
IMITATION in literature, 305-307.
IRRITABILITY of genius, 70, 86-88.
ISOCRATES' belief in native character, 32.
JAMES I., a critical disquisition on the character of, 385-455.
JULIAN, Emperor, anecdotes of, 97.
JEALOUSY in art and literature, 154-159; of honours paid to literary men, 251.
JOHNSON, Dr., defines the literary character, 12; his moral dignity, 192; his metaphysical loves, 200; anecdotes of him and Goldsmith, 294.
JUVENILE WORKS, their value, 67.
LABOUR endured by great authors, 75; a pleasure to some minds, 176-177.
LETTERS in the vernacular idiom, 375-379.
LINNÆUS sensitive to ridicule, 75; honours awarded to, 191.
LITERARY FRIENDSHIP, 209-217.
LITERATURE an avenue to glory, 248.
LOCKE'S simile of the human mind, 25.
MANNERISTS in literature, 293.
MARCO Polo ridiculed unjustly, n. 79.
MATRIMONIAL STATE in literature and art, 198-208.
MAZZUCHELLI a great literary historian, 352.
MEDITATION, value of, 129.
MEMORY, as an art, 120, 122.
MENDELSSOHN, Moses, his remarkable history, 61-64.
MEN of LETTERS, their definition, 226-238.
METASTASIO a bad sportsman, 38; his susceptibility, 140.
MILTON, his high idea of the literary character, 12; his theory of genius, 25; his love of study, 135; sacrifices sight to poetry, 152.
MISCELLANISTS and their works, 282-286.
MODES OF STUDY used by great men, 125.
MOLIERE, his dramatic career, 310-325.
MONTAIGNE, his personal traits, 223.
MORE, Dr., on enthusiasm of genius, 149.
MORERI devotes a life to literature, 152.
MORTIMER the artist, his athletic exercises, 39.
MURATORI, his literary industry, 351.
NATIONAL tastes in literature, 260.
NECESSITY, its influence on literature, 193-194.
OBSCURE BIRTHS of great men, 248-249.
OLD AGE of literary men, 238-244.
PECULIAR habits of authors, 119-120.
PEIRESC, his early bias toward literature, 234; his studious career, 235.
PERSONAL CHARACTER differs from the literary one, 217-226.
PETRARCH'S remarkable conversation on his melancholy, 68;
his mode of life, 114.
POPE, his anxiety over his Homer, 81;
severity of his early studies, 147.
POUSSIN fears trading in art, 193.
POVERTY of literary men, 186; sometimes a choice, 188-190.
PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE of life wanting in studious men, 183-185.
PRAYERS of great men, 146.
PRECIEUSES, 315-318.
PREDISPOSITION of the mind, 118.
PREFACES, their interest, 286; their occasional falsehood, 287; vanity of authors in, 288; idle apologies in, 289; Dryden's interesting, 290.
PREJUDICES, literary, 160-163.
PUBLIC TASTE formed by public writers, 268.
RACINE, sensibility of, 83; 325-332.
RAMBOUILLET, Hotel de, 315-317.
READING analyzed, 298-302.
RECLUSE manners in great authors, 98-99.
RELICS of men of genius, 255-258.
REMUNERATION of literature, 194-195.
RESIDENCES of literary men, 255-257.
REYNOLDS, Sir J., his "automatic system," 26; discovers its inconsistencies, 27.
RIDICULE the terror of genius, 94
ROBERTSON the historian, 341-350.
ROLAND, Madame, anecdote of the power of poetry on, 141.
ROMNEY, his anxiety over his picture of the Tempest, 81-82.
ROUSSEAU'S expedient to endure society, 73; his domestic infelicity, 175.
ROYAL SOCIETY, attacks on, n. 14.
RUBENS' transcripts of the poets, 21.
SANDWICH, Lord, his first idea of a stratagem at sea, 132.
SCUDERY, Mademoiselle, 316.
SENSITIVENESS of genius, 72, 78, 78; 139-140.
SELF-IMMOLATION of genius to labour, 152.
SELF-PRAISE of genius, 162-170.
SERVANTS, a dissertation on, 364-374.
SHEE, Sir M.A., relations of poetry and painting, n., 21.
SHENSTONE, his early love, 199.
SIDDONS, Mrs., anecdote of, 137.
SINGLENESS of genius, 245-247.
SOCIETY, artificial, an injury to genius, 90.
SOLITUDE loved by men of genius, 35-40; 109-115.
STEAM first discovered, 133.
STUDIES of advanced life, 241-243.
STERNE, anecdotes of, 332-340.
STYLE and its peculiarities, 291-294.
SUSCEPTIBILITY of men of genius, 170-172.
SUGGESTIONS of one mind perfected by another, 275-276.
TASSO uneasy in his labours, 84.
TAYLOR, Dr. Brooke, his torpid melancholy, 175.
TEMPLE, Sir W., his love of gardens, 283.
THEORETICAL history, 342.
THOMSON, his sensitiveness to grand poetry, 142; irritability over false criticisms, 65.
TOBACCO, its introduction to England, 362.
TOOTHPICKS, origin of, 358.
TOWNLEY Gallery of Sculpture, n., 13.
TROUBADOURS, their influence, 285.
UMBRELLAS, their history, 358.
UTILITARIANISM and its narrow view of literature, 15.
UNIVERSALITY Of genius, 244.
VAN PRAUN refuses to part with his collection to an emperor, 229.
VERNET sketches in a storm, 144.
VERS DE SOCIETE, 308-310.
VINDICTIVENESS of genius, 170-173.
VISIONARIES of genius, 148.
VISITORS disliked by literary men, 112-113.
VOLTAIRE, anecdote of his visit to a country house, 95;
his universal genius, 245.
WALPOLE's, Horace, opinion of Gray, 91;
of Burke, ib.
WATSON neglects research in his professorship, 17.
WERNER'S discoveries in science, 145.
WILKES desirous of literary glory, 17.
WIT sometimes mechanical, 126.
WIVES of literary men, 202-208.
WORKS intended, but not executed, 123.
WOOD, Anthony, sacrifices all to study, 152.
YOUNG the poet, his want of sympathy, 185.
YOUTH of great men, 34-54.
THE END.
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
FREDERICK WARNE & CO., PUBLISHERS,
* * * * *
THE CHANDOS POETS.
* * * * *
Under this distinctive title are now published New and Elegant Volumes of Standard Poetry, fully Illustrated, well Edited, and printed with a Red-line Border, Steel Portraits, &c..
* * * * *
In crown 8vo, price 7s. 6d. each, cloth gilt, gilt edges; or morocco, 16s.
The Poetical Works of Longfellow.
The Legendary Ballads of England and Scotland. Edited and compiled by JOHN S. ROBERTS.
Scott's Poetical Works. With numerous Notes.
Eliza Cook's Poems. A Complete Edition, with Portrait and
Steel Illustrations.
Moore's Poetical Works. With numerous Notes.
Cowper's Poetical Works. Edited from the best Editions.
Milton's Poetical Works. Edited from the best Editions.
Wordsworth's Poetical Works.
Byron's Poetical Works. With Explanatory Notes.
Mrs. Hemans' Poetical Works. With Memoir, &c.
Burns' Poetical Works. With Explanatory Glossarial Notes.
Hood's Poetical Works. With Life.
Campbell's Poetical Works. With Memoir.
Coleridge's Poetical Works. With Memoir, Notes, &c.
Shelley's Poetical Works. With Memoir, Notes, &c.
Pope's Homer's Iliad & Odyssey. With Flaxman's Illustrations.
Pope's Poetical Works. With Original Notes.
Mackay's Complete Poetical Works; Revised by the Author.
Herbert's (George) Poems and Prose. With Notes, &c.
Heber's (Bishop) Poetical Works. With Notes, &c.
Keble's (John) The Christian Year.
Uniform in size, price, and style, but without Red-line.
Poets of the Nineteenth Century. With 120 Illustrations by
J.E. MILLAIS, TENNIEL, PICKERSGILL, Sir J. GILBERT, HARRISON
WEIR, &c.
The Spirit of Praise. A Collection of Hymns, Old and New,
with upwards of One Hundred choice Illustrations.
Christian Lyrics. From Modern Authors. With Two Hundred
and Fifty Illustrations.
Shakspeare: The Plays and Poems. 1200 pp., with Portrait.
Montgomery's (James) Poetical Works. With Prefatory
Memoir and Explanatory Notes. 100 Original Illustrations.
* * * * *
BEDFORD STREET, STRAND.
FREDERICK WARNE & CO., PUBLISHERS.
* * * * *
THE CHANDOS LIBRARY.
A Series of Standard Works in all Classes of Literature.
* * * * *
In crown 8vo, price 3s. 6d. each, cloth gilt.
The Percy Anecdotes. By REUBEN and SHOLTO PERCY.
Verbatim Reprint of Original Edition. Introduction by JOHN TIMBS.
Original Steel Portraits, and Index. Three Vols., each Complete in
itself.
Pepys' Diary and Correspondence. With Seven Steel Portraits
arranged as a Frontispiece, Memoir, Introductory Preface, and full
Index.
Abbeys, Castles, and Ancient Halls of England and Wales:
Their Legendary Lore and Popular History—South, Midland, North. By
JOHN TIMBS. Author of "Curiosities of London," and ALEXANDER GUNN.
New Frontispiece. Three Vols. Each Volume Complete in itself.
Johnson's Lives of the Poets; with Critical Observations on
their Works, and a Sketch of the Author's Life by Sir WALTER SCOTT.
Book of Authors. A Collection of Criticisms, Ana, Mots, Personal Descriptions, &c. By W. CLARK RUSSELL.
Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence. Edited by BRAY. 784 pp.
With Frontispiece and full Index.
Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. With
Portrait. Three Vols.
A Century of Anecdote. Compiled and Edited by JOHN TIMBS.
With Frontispiece.
Pope's Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. FLAXMAN'S Illustrations.
Scott's Lives of Eminent Novelists and Dramatists.
Don Quixote (Life and Adventures of). By CERVANTES.
The Koran: A verbatim Reprint. With Maps, Plans, &c.
The Talmud (Selections from). H. POLANO. Maps, Plans, &c.
Gil Blas (The Adventures of). By LE SAGE.
Carpenter's Popular Elocutionist. With Portrait.
Walton and Cotton's Angler. Edited, with Notes, by G.
CHRISTOPHER DAVIES.
The Peninsular War and the Campaigns of Wellington in
France and Belgium. By H.R. CLINTON.
Fugitive Poetry of the Last Three Centuries. Edited by
J.C. HUTCHIESON.
White's Natural History of Selborne. Numerous Illustrations.
Lamb's Poems and Essays.
Spenser's Poetical Works. With Portrait.
Roscoe's Italian Novelists. }
Roscoe's German Novelists. } Complete Editions.
Roscoe's Spanish Novelists. }