workes, either in prose or verse, I cannot but allow you to practise it; but take no longsome works in hande, for distracting you from your calling." He reminds the prince with dignity and truth, "Your writes (writings) will remain as the true picture of your minde, to all posterities; if yee would write worthelie, chuse subjects worthie of you." His critical conception of the nature of poetry is its best definition. “ If ye write in verse, remember that it is not the principal part of a poem to rime right, and flow well with many prettie wordes; but the chief commendation of a poem is, that when the verse shall bee taken sundry in prose, it shall be found so ritch in quick inventions and poetick floures, and in fair and pertinent comparisons, as it shall retain the lustre of a poem although in prose." The king proceeds touching many curious points concerning the prince's bodily exercises and "house-pastimes." A genuine picture of the customs and manners of the age: our royal author had the eye of an observer, and the thoughtfulness of a sage. The king closes with the hope that the prince's "natural inclination will have a happie simpathie with these precepts; making the wise man's schoolmaister, which is the example of others, to be your teacher; and not that overlate repentance by your own experience, which is the schoolmaister of fools." Thus have I opened the book, and I believe, the heart of James I. The volume remains a perpetual witness to posterity of the intellectual capacity and the noble disposition of the royal author. But this monarch has been unfairly reproached, both by the political and religious; as far as these aspersions connect themselves with his character, they enter into our inquiry. His speeches and his writings are perpetually quoted by democratic writers, with the furious zeal of those who are doing the work of a party; they never separate the character of James from his speculative principles of government; and, such is the odium they have raised against him, that this sovereign has received the execration, or the ridicule, even of those who do not belong to their party. James maintained certain abstract doctrines of the times, and had written on "The Prerogative Royal," and "The Trew Laws of Free Monarchies," as he had on witches and devils. All this verbal despotism is artfully converted into so many acts of despotism itself; and thus they contrive their dramatic exhibition of a blustering tyrant, in the person of a father of his people, who exercised his power without an atom of brutal despotism adhering to it. THE KING'S IDEA OF THE ROYAL WHEN James asserted that a king is above the laws, he did not understand this in the popular sense; nor was he the inventor or the reviver of similar doctrines. In all his mysterious flights on the nature of "The Prerogative Royal," James only maintained what Elizabeth and all the Tudors had, as jealously, but more energetically exercised *. Elizabeth left to her successor the royal prerogative strained to its highest pitch, with no means to support a throne which in the succeeding reign was found to be baseless. The king employed the style of absolute power, and, as Harris says, "entertained notions of his prerogative amazingly great, and bordering on impiety." It never occurred to his calumniators, who are always writing, without throwing themselves back into the age of their inquiries, that all the political reveries, the abstract notions, and the metaphysical fancies of James I. arose from his studious desire of being an English sovereign, according to the English constitution-for from thence he derived those very ideas. THE LAWYERS' IDEA OF THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE. THE truth is, that lawyers, in their anxiety to define, or to defend the shadowy limits of the royal prerogative, had contrived some strange and clumsy fictions to describe its powers; their flatteries of the imaginary being, whom they called the sovereign, are more monstrous than all the harmless abstractions of James I. They describe an English sovereign as a mysterious being, invested with absolute perfection and a fabulous immortality, whose person was inviolable by its sacredness. A king of England is not subject to death, since the sovereign is a corporation, expressed by the awful plural the OUR * In Sir Symund D'Ewes's Journals of the Parliament, and in Townshend's Historical Collections, we trace in some degree Elizabeth's arbitrary power concealed in her prerogative, which she always considered as the dissolving charm in the magical circle of our constitution. But I possess two letters of the French ambassador to Charles IX. written from our court in her reign; who, by means of his secret intercourse with those about her person, details a curious narrative of a royal interview granted to some deputies of the parliament, at that moment refractory, strongly depicting the exalted notions this great sovereign entertained of the prerogative, and which she asserted in stamping her foot. and the wɛ. His majesty is always of full age, though in infancy; and so unlike mortality, the king can do no wrong. Such his ubiquity, that he acts at the same moment in different places; and such the force of his testimony, that whatever the sovereign declares to have passed in his presence, becomes instantly a perpetual record; he serves for his own witness, by the simple subscription of Teste me ipso; and he is so absolute in power, beyond the laws, that he quashes them by his negative voice*. Such was the origin of the theoretical prerogative of an ideal sovereign, which James I. had formed: it was a mere curious abstraction of the schools in the spirit of the age, which was perpetually referring to the mysteries of state and the secrets of empires, and not a principle he was practising to the detriment of the subject. James I. while he held for his first principle that a sovereign is only accountable to God for the sins of his government, a harmless and even a noble principle in a religious prince, at various times acknowledged that "a king is ordained for procuring the prosperity of his people." In his speech, 1603, he says, "If you be rich I cannot be poor; if you be happy I cannot but be fortunate. My worldly felicity consists in your prosperity. And that I am a servant is most true, as I am a head and governour of all the people in my dominions. If we take the people as one body, then as the head is ordained for the body and not the body for the head, so must a righteous king know himself to be ordained for his people, and not his people for him." The truth is always concealed by those writers who are cloaking their antipathy against monarchy, in their declamations against the writings of James I. Authors, who are so often influenced by the opinions of their age, have the melancholy privilege of perpetuating them, and of being cited as authorities for those very opinions, however erroneous. At this time the true principles of popular liberty, hidden in the constitution, were yet obscure and contested; involved in contradiction, * Such are the descriptions of the British sovereign, to be found in Cowell's curious book, entitled "The Interpreter." The reader may further trace the modern genius of Blackstone, with an awful reverence, dignifying the venerable nonsense-and the commentator on Blackstone sometimes labouring to explain the explanations of his master; so obscure, so abstract, and so delicate, is the phantom which our ancient lawyers conjured up, and which the moderns cannot lay. in assertion, and recantation †; and they have been established as much by the blood as by the ink of our patriots.. Some noble spirits in the Commons were then struggling to fix the vacillating principles of our government; but often their private passions were infused into their public feelings; James, who was apt to imagine that these individuals were instigated by a personal enmity in aiming at his mysterious prerogative, and at the same time found their rivals with equal weight opposing the novel opinions, retreated still farther into the depths and arcana of the constitution. Modern writers have viewed the political fancies of this monarch through optical instruments not invented in his days. 66 When Sir Edward Coke declared that the king's royal prerogative being unlimited and undefined, was a great overgrown monster;" and, on one occasion, when Coke said before the king, that "his Majesty was defended by the laws,"-James in anger told him he spoke foolishly, and he said he was not defended by the laws, but by God (alluding to his "divine right"); and sharply reprimanded him for having spoken irreverently of Sir Thomas Crompton, a civilian; asserting, that Crompton was as good a man as Coke. The fact is, there then existed a rivalry between the civil and the common lawyers. Coke declared that the common law of England was in imminent danger of being perverted; that law which he has enthusiastically described as the perfection of all sense and experience. Coke was strenuously opposed by Lord Bacon and by the civilians, and was at length committed to the Tower (according to a MS. letter of the day, for the cause is obscure in our history), charged with speaking so in parliament, as tended to stir up the subjects' hearts against their sovereign ‡.” Yet in all this we 66 + Cowell, equally learned and honest, involved himself in contradictory positions, and was alike prosecuted by the King and the Commons, on opposite principles. The overbearing Coke seems to have aimed at his life, which the lenity of James saved. His work is a testimony of the unsettled principles of liberty at that time; Cowell was compelled to appeal to one part of his book to save himself from the other. The following anecdotes of Lord Chief Justice Coke have not been published. They are extracts from manuscript letters of the times: on that occasion, at first, the patriot did not conduct himself with the firmness of a great spirit. Nov. 19, 1616. "The thunderbolt hath fallen on the Lord Coke, which hath overthrown him from the very roots. The supersedeas was carried to him by Sir George must not regard James as the despot he is represented he acted as Elizabeth would have acted, for the sacredness of his own person, and the integrity of the constitution. In the same manuscript letter I find that, when at Theobald's, the king with his usual openness was discoursing how he designed to govern; and as he would some Coppin, who, at the presenting of it, received it with dejection and tears. Tremor et successio times, like the wits of all nations and times, compress an argument into a play on words,—the king said, "I will govern according to the good of the common-weal, but not according to the common-will!" THE KING'S ELEVATED CONCEPTION OF BUT what were the real thoughts and feelings of non cadunt in fortem et constantem. I send you this presumed despot concerning the duties of a a distich on the Lord Coke. Jus condere Cocus potuit, sed condere jure It happened that the name of Coke, or rather Cook, admitted of being punned on, both in Latin and in English: for he was lodged in the Tower, in a room that had once been a kitchen, and, as soon as he arrived, one had written on the door, which he read at his entrance sovereign? His Platonic conceptions inspired the most exalted feelings; but his gentle nature never led to one act of unfeeling despotism. His sceptre was wreathed with the roses of his fancy: the iron of arbitary power only struck into the heart in the abstract notion; or, in anger, with his own hand succeeding reign. James only menaced with an would tear out a protestation from the journals of the Commons: and, when he considered a man as past forgiveness, he condemned him to a slight imprisonment; or removed him to a distant employment; or, if an author, like Coke and Cowell, sent him into retirement to correct his works. ference of the royal authority was ardently soliIn a great court of judicature, when the intercited, the magnanimous monarch replied :— Captain Coke, the leader of the faction in parlia- laws of nature; and ought as rarely to put in use Kings ruled by their laws, as God did by the their supreme authority as God does his power of working miracles." "This room has long wanted a Cook." "The prince interceding lately for Edward Coke, his Majesty answered, He knew no such man.' When the prince interceded by the name of Mr. Coke, his Majesty still answered, 'He knew none of that name neither; but he knew there was one ment.'" In another letter, Coke appears with greater dignity. When Lord Arundel was sent by the king to Coke, a prisoner in the Tower, to inform him that his Majesty would allow him to consult with eight of the best learned in the law, to advise him for his cause; Coke thanked the king, but he knew himself to be accounted to have as much skill in the law as any man in England, and therefore needed no such help, nor feared to be judged by the law. He knew his Majesty might easily find, in such a one as he, whereby to take away his head, but for this he feared not what could be said. 66 Notwithstanding his abstract principles, his knowledge and reflection showed him that there is a crisis in monarchies and a period in empires; and in discriminating between a king and a tyrant, 'A tyranne's miserable and infamous life armeth in end his own subiects to become his burreaux ; and although this rebellion be ever unlawful on their part, yet is the world so wearied of him, that his fall is little meaned (minded) by the rest of his subiects, and smiled at by his neighbours." And he desires that the prince, his son, should "I have heard you affirm," said Lord Arundel, "that by law, he that should go about to with-so perform his royal duties, that, “in case ye fall in the highway, yet it should be with the honourdraw the subjects' hearts from their king, was a able report and just regret of all honest men." In traitor."-Sir Edward answered, "That he held him an arch-traitor." James I. said of Coke, "That he had so many shifts that, throw him where you would, he still fell upon his legs." This affair ended with putting Sir Edward Coke on his knees before the council-table, with an order to retire to a private life, to correct his book of Reports, and occasionally to consult the king himself. This part of Coke's history is fully opened in Mr. Alexander Chalmers's Biog. Dictionary. the dedicatory sonnet to Prince Henry of the Basi- "Represse the proud, maintaining aye the right; The poems of James I. are the versifications of a man of learning and meditation. Such an one could not fail of producing lines which reflect the mind of their author. I find in a MS. these couplets, which condense an impressive thought tions on Sundays and holidays, after the churchon his favourite subject :service. "With our own ears we heard the general "Crownes have their compasse, length of daies complaint of our people." The Catholic priests their date, were busily insinuating among the lower orders that the reformed religion was a sullen deprivation of all mirth and social amusements, and thus par-turning the people's hearts." But while they But knowledge makes the king most like his Maker *." These are among the elevated conceptions the king had formed of the character of a sovereign, and the feeling was ever present in his mind. James has preserved an anecdote of Henry VIII., in commenting on it, which serves our purpose :"It was strange," said James I., " to look into the life of Henry VIII., how like an epicure he lived! Henry once asked, whether he might be saved? He was answered, That he had no cause to fear, having lived so mighty a king.'-' But, oh!' said he, I have lived too like a king.' He should rather have said, not like a king-for the office of a king is to do justice and equity; but he only served his sensuality, like a beast." 4 were denied what the king terms "lawful recreations †," they had substituted more vicious ones: alehouses were more frequented - drunkenness more general-tale-mongery and sedition, the vices of sedentary idleness, prevailed—while a fanatical gloom was spreading over the country. The king, whose gaiety of temper instantly sympathised with the multitude, and perhaps alarmed at this new shape which puritanism was assuming, published what is called " The Book of Sports," and which soon obtained the contemptuous term of "The Dancing Book." On this subject, our recent principles have hitherto governed our decisions: with our habits formed, and our notions finally adjusted, this singular state-paper has been reprobated by piety; whose zeal, however, is not sufficiently historical. It was one of the state-maxims of this philosophic monarch, in his advice to his son, "To allure the common people to a common amitie among themselves; and that certain daies in the yeere should be appointed for delighting the people with public spectacles of all honest games and exercise of arms; making playes and lawful games in Maie, and good cheare at Christmas ; as also for convening of neighbours, for entertain Henry VII. was the favourite character of James I.; and it was to gratify the king, that Lord Bacon wrote the life of this wise and prudent monarch. It is remarkable of James I., that he never mentioned the name of Elizabeth without some expressive epithet of reverence; such as, "The late queen of famous memory;" a circumstance not common among kings, who do not like to remind the world of the reputation of a great predecessor. But it suited the generous tempering friendship and heartliness, by honest feasting of that man to extol the greatness he admired, whose philosophic toleration was often known to have pardoned the libel on himself for the redeeming virtue of its epigram. In his forgiving temper, James I. would call such effusions" the superfluities of idle brains." "THE BOOK OF SPORTS." BUT while the mild government of this monarch has been covered with the political odium of arbitrary power, he has also incurred a religious one, from his design of rendering the Sabbath a day for the poor alike of devotion and enjoyment, hitherto practised in England, as it is still throughout Europe. Plays were performed on Sundays at court, in Elizabeth's reign; and yet "the Protestants of Elizabeth" was the usual expressive phrase to mark those who did most honour to the reformed. The king, returning from Scotland, found the people in Lancashire discontented, from the unusual deprivation of their popular recreaHarl. MSS., 6824. and merriness; so that the sabbothes be kept holie, and no unlawful pastime be used. This form of contenting the people's minds hath been used in all well-governed republics." James, therefore, was shocked at the sudden melancholy among the people. In Europe, even among the reformed themselves, the Sabbath, after church-service, was a festival-day; and the wise monarch could discover no reason why, in his kingdom, it should prove a day of penance and self-denial: but when once this unlucky "Book of Sports" was thrown among the nation, they discovered, to their own astonishment, that everything concerning the nature of the Sabbath was uncertain. These are enumerated to consist of dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting, May-games, Whitsunales, Morris-dances, and the setting up of Maypoles, and other manly sports. THE SABBATARIAN CONTROVERSY. Temple, who was disposed to keep alive a cheerful spirit among the people, yet desirous that the sacred day should not pass like any other, moderated between the parties. He declared it was to be observed with strictness only by "persons of quality." James I. AND, because they knew nothing, they wrote much. The controversy was carried to an extremity in the succeeding reign. The proper hour of the Sabbath was not agreed on : Was it to commence on the Saturday-eve? Others thought that time, One of the chief causes of the civil war is "Book of Sports." having a circular motion, the point we begin at traced to the revival of this was not important, provided the due portion be Thus it happened that from the circumstance of completed. Another declared, in his "Sunday our good-tempered monarch discovering the popuno Sabbath," that it was merely an ecclesiastical lace in Lancashire discontented, being debarred day which may be changed at pleasure; as they from their rustic sports-and, exhorting them, were about doing it, in the Church of Geneva, to out of his bonhommie, and “fatherly love, which Thursday,-probably from their antipathy to the he owed to them all," (as he said) to recover their Catholic Sunday, as the early Christians had cheerful habits—he was innocently involving the anciently changed it from the Jewish Saturday. country in divinity, and in civil war. This had taken place, had the Thursday voters would have started with horror at the "Book of not formed the minority. Another asserted, that Sports," could he have presciently contemplated Sunday was a working day, and that Saturday the archbishop, and the sovereign who persisted was the perpetual Sabbath *. Some deemed the to revive it, dragged to the block. What invisible very name of Sunday profaned the Christian threads suspend together the most remote events! mouth, as allusive to the Saxon idolatry of that day being dedicated to the Sun; and hence they sanctified it with the "Lord's-day." Others were strenuous advocates for closely copying the austerity of the Jewish Sabbath, in all the rigour of the Levitical law; forbidding meat to be dressed, houses swept, fires kindled, &c.,-the day of rest was to be a day of mortification. But this spread an alarm, that "the old rotten ceremonial law of the Jews, which had been buried in the grave of Jesus," was about to be revived. And so prone is man to the reaction of opinion, that, from observing the Sabbath with a Judaic austerity, some were for rejecting "Lord's-days" | Puritans, disgusted with the levities and excesses altogether; asserting, they needed not any; be- of the age of James and Charles, as is usual on cause, in their elevated holiness, all days to them these points, vehemently threw themselves into were Lord's-days †. A popular preacher at the Collier's Eccl. Hist., vol. ii. p. 758. Fuller's Church Hist., book xi. p. 149. One of the most curious books of this class is Heylin's "History of the Sabbath;" a work abounding with uncommon researches ; it was written in favour of Charles's declaration for reviving lawful sports on Sundays. Warton in the first edition of Milton's Juvenile Poems, observed in a note on the Lady's speech, in Comus, verse 177, that "it is owing to the Puritans ever since Cromwell's time that Sunday has been made in England a day of gravity and severity and many a staunch observer of the rites of the Church of England little suspects that he is conforming to the Calvinism of an English Sunday." It is probable this gave unjust offence to grave heads unfurnished with their own national history for in the second edition Warton cancelled the note. Truth is thus violated. The The parliament's armies usually chose Sundays for their battles, that the profanation of the day might be expiated by a field-sacrifice, and that the Sabbath-breakers should receive a signal punishment. The opinions of the nature of the Sabbath were, even in the succeeding reign, so opposite and novel, that plays were performed before Charles on Sundays. James I. who knew nothing of such opinions, has been unjustly aspersed by those who live in more settled times, when such matters have been more wisely established than ever they were discussed §. an opposite direction; but they perhaps advanced too far in converting the Sabbath-day into a sullen and gloomy reserve of pharisaical austerity. Adam Smith, and Paley, in his "Moral and Political Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 73, have taken more enlightened views on this subject. "Let servants," he says, "whose hands are ever working, whilst their eyes are waking; let such who all the foregoing week had their cheeks moistened with sweat, and their hands hardened with labour, let such have some recreations on the Lord's-day indulged to them; whilst persons of quality, who may be said to keep Sabbath all the week long-I mean, who rest from hard labour-are concerned in conscience to observe the Lord's-day with the greater abstinence from recreations." § It is remarkable of James I. that he never pressed for the performance of any of his proclamations; and his facile disposition made him more tolerant than appears in our history. At |