JAMES THE FIRST.

If there are doubts on the genuineness of the works of those two champions of the church, Henry the eighth and Charles the first; if some critics have discovered that the latter royal author stole a prayer from the Arcadia2; and if the very existence of king

2 [This discovery was first announced in Milton's Iconoclastes. But Dr. Gill affirms, that his patient, Henry Hill, the printer, said this prayer was put in by a contrivance of Milton, who catching his friend, Mr. Du Gard, printing an edition of Icon Basilike, got his pardon by Bradshaw's interest, on condition he would insert Pamela's prayer from the Arcadia, to bring discredit on the book, and the author of it. I wonder, says Toland, at the easiness of Dr. Gill, to believe so gross a fable; when it does not appear that Du Gard, who was printer to the parliament, ever printed this book, and that the prayer is in the second edition, published by R. Royston. And if the king's friends thought it not his own, what made them print it in the first impression of his works in folio, by Royston, in 1662; when Milton could not tamper with the press? Or why did they let it pass in the last impression in folio by Chiswell, in the year 1686, when all the world knew it was long before exposed in Iconoclastes? Henry Hill turned papist in king James's time, to become his printer, as he was Oliver's before. Amyntor, pp. 153-5. Notwithstanding this cogent reasoning, Dr. Francis Bernard confirmed Dr. Gill's testimony, declaring that he remembered very well, Mr. Henry Hill, the printer, told him he had heard Bradshaw and Milton laugh at their inserting a prayer out of sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, at the end of king Charles's VOL. I.

I

Richard's sonnets has been questioned; yet there is not the least suspicion that the folio under the respectable name of James the first, is not of his own composition."

Roger Ascham may have corrected or assisted periods of his illustrious pupil; but nobody can imagine that Buchanan dictated a word of the "Dæmonologia"," or of the

book. Wagstaff's Vindication of King Charles, p. 51. For more arguments in exoneration of this charge, see Vindicia Carolinæ, p. 28.]

9 [Dr. Lort suggests a doubt, whether the Basilicon Doron, printed soon after his accession to the English throne, be the composition of James the first. At least, he says, the style must have been smoothed and polished, to accommodate it to English tastes. Camden also speaks of its having been corrected; but I have not been able to ascertain whether in matter or style, the Scotish edition being a book of such rare occurrence. The English one was reprinted in 1681, by order of James the second. The learned Mr. Beloe has pointed out a ludicrous mistake respecting it by Moreri, the celebrated compiler of the Historical Dictionary, who having occasion to mention the Doron Basilicon, speaks of Dorus Basilicus, as the name of an author. Beloe's Miscellanies, vol. ii. p.96.]

+ [" Dæmonologie; in Forme of a Dialogue, divided into three Bookes," was printed at Edinburgh in 1597, and at London in 1603, 4to.: the preface is signed JAMES R. It has been said that the prosecution of one Agnes Wilson discovered the whole mystery of witchcraft, and from those discoveries king James compiled his Dæmonologia. See Gent. Mag. vol. vii. p. 556. The royal penman protests that his treatise was undertaken,

polite treatise, intituled, "A Counterblast to Tobacco." Quotations, puns, scripture, witticisms, superstition, oaths, vanity, prerogative, and pedantry, the ingredients of all his sacred majesty's performances, were the pure produce of his own capacity, and deserving all the incense offered to such immense erudition, by the divines of his age, and the flatterers of his court. One remark I cannot avoid making; the king's speech is always supposed by parliament to be the speech of the minister: how

"not in any wise to serve for a shew of learning and ingine, but onely to resolve the doubting harts of many, that such assaultes of Sathan are most certainly practized, and that the instruments thereof merit most severly to be punished: against the damnable opinions of two principally; whereof the one called Scot, an Englishman, is not ashamed in publike print to deny that there can be such a thing as witchcraft; and the other called Wierus, a German physition, sets out a publick apologie for all these craftes-folkes." Pref. to the reader. A vindication of Scot and Wierus against the imputation of king James, was published by Webster, in his « Displaying of supposed Witchcraft.” But as the ready way, observes Dr. Johnson, to gain king James's favour, was to flatter his speculations, the system of dæmonologie was immediately adopted by all who desired either to gain preferment or not to lose it. Introduction to the tragedy of Macbeth.]

5 [By the Dæmonologia, and Counterblast, says Granger, James the first lost as much reputation as he had gained by his Basilicon Doron. Biog. Hist. vol.ii. p.1.]

cruel would it have been on king James's ministers, if that interpretation had prevailed in his reign!"

Besides his majesty's prose works, printed in folio, we have a small collection of his poetry, under this title,

6 It is observable, that notwithstanding his boasted learning, he was so ignorant of a country which had such strong connexions with his own, that when queen Elizabeth wanted to hinder him from matching with a daughter of Denmark, Wotton, her embassador, persuaded him that the king of Denmark was descended but of merchants, and that few made account of him or his country but such as spoke the Dutch tongue. Harris's Life of King James, p.31, quoted from Melvil. Historians seem little more acquainted with the queen, than his majesty was with her country. Her gallantries are slightly mentioned; yet it is recorded, that James being jealous of her partiality to the earl of Murray, then esteemed the handsomest man in Scotland, persuaded his great enemy, the marquis of Huntley, to murder him, and by a writing under his own hand promised to save him harmless. Ib. p. 14, taken from Burnet. Queen Anne's ambitious intrigues are developed in the Bacon papers, among which is one most extraordinary passage, entirely overlooked, and yet of great consequence to explain the misfortunes into which her descendants afterwards fell. The pope sends her beads and reliques," and thanks her for not communicating with heretics at her coronation." Vol. ii. p. 505, 504. And this evidence of her being a papist is confirmed by a letter from sir Ch. Cornwallis to the earl of Salisbury, in which he tells him, "that the Spanish embassador had advertised that the queen should say unto him, he might one day peradventure see the prince on a pilgrimage at St. Jago." Harris's Life of James, p. 33, in a quotation from Winwood.

7

"His Majesty's Poeticall Exercises at vacant Houres. Edinb."8

In the preface he condescends to make an excuse for their incorrectness, as having been written in his youth, and from his having no time to revise them afterwards; so that, "when his ingyne and age could, his affaires and fasherie would not permit him to correct them, scarslie but at stollen moments he having the leisure to blenk upon any paper. However, he bribes the readers' approbation, by promising if these are well received, to present them with his Apocalyps and Psalms. This little tract contains, "The Furies, and the Lepanto "."

7 [Edmund Bolton, in his Hypercritica, sect. iii. says, "he dare not presume to speak of his majesty's exercises in this heroick kind; because he saw them all left out of that volume which Montague, lord bishop of Winchester, hath given us of his royal writings." This was the fact: whence it may be inferred, that the poetry of king James was omitted by royal command.]

8 [A thin small-sized quarto, handsomely printed at Edinburgh, in 1591, by Rob. Waldegrave, printer to the king's majesty.]

9 [Translated from the French of Du Bartas; and particularly referred to in Sylvester's subsequent version of the same poem.]

2 [A poem of the king's own enditing, which Du Bartas turned into French. His translation was printed at Edinburgh, 1591, 4to.]