added from Granger, that the love of peace seems to have been the ruling passion in James the first. To this he sacrificed almost every principle of sound policy. He was eminently learned, especially in divinity; and was better qualified to fill a professor's chair than a throne. His speculative notions of regal power were as absolute as those of an eastern monarch; but he wanted that vigour and firmness of mind which was necessary to reduce them to practice. His consciousness of his own weakness in the exertion of his prerogative, drew from him this confession : "that though a king in abstracto, had all power, a king in concreto, was bound to observe the laws of the country which he governed." But if all restraints on his prerogative had been taken off, and he could have been in reality that abstracted king which he had formed in his imagination, he possessed too much good nature to have been a tyrant.]*

3 His majesty (James I.) our soveraigne, says Peacham, would dispute altogether in points and profound questions of divinity. Compleat Gent. 1622, p.195.

Biog. Hist. vol. i. p. 312. Richard Taileboys has an “Ellegiack Encomium," in lamentable verse, on James the first, who "dyed at his most delightfull and princely house att Theobolds, on the Lords day, about twelve a clocke at noone, being the xxvij° day of March, A. D. 1625," &c. Reg. MS. 18 A. xlix.

CHARLES THE FIRST.

THE works of this prince were soon after his death collected and published together in a volume, intituled,

Reliquiæ sacræ Carolina; or the Works of that great Monarch and glorious Martyr, King Charles the First, both civil and sacred," printed by Sam. Brown at the Hague, without date. After the restoration, a fine edition was published in folio, containing, besides the famous Εικων Βασιλικη 3, several of his

"Speeches, Letters, Declarations, and Messages for Peace;" his

"Answer to a Declaration of the Commons";" the

2 [In 1662, by James Flesher, for R. Royston, and forms a handsome piece of typography. A copious life of the royal author is prefixed by Richard Perrinchiefe.]

3 Which has gone through forty-seven impressions: the number of copies are said to have been 48,000. Harris's Life of Charles I. p. 115. [Vindicia Carolina: or a Defence of Elkov Baσiλin, was published in 1692, and is written with much acumen.]

+ [Mr. Reed, with his accustomed critical correctness, has pointed out these letters, declarations, and messages, to be the composition of lord Clarendon, lord Falkland, and sir John Colepepper.]

[This article is not apparent in the table of contents.]

"Five Papers which passed between his Majesty and Mr. Alex. Henderson at Newcastle, concerning the Alteration of Churchgovernment ";" the

66

Papers on the same Subject exchanged between the King and the Ministers at Newport;" and the

Prayers which he used in his Sufferings, and delivered immediately before his Death to Bishop Juxon."7

I shall not enter into the controversy whether the Είκων Βασιλική was composed by king Charles or not; a full account of that dispute may be found in the General Dictionary. For

8

6 [Lord Clarendon declares that the king was so much too hard for Mr. Henderson in this argumentation, and the old man himself was so far convinced and converted, that he had a very deep sense of the mischief he had himself been the author of, or too much contributed to, and lamented it to his nearest friends and confidents; and died of grief, and heart-broken, within a very short time after he departed from his majesty. Hist. of Rebellion, vol. iii. p. 24.]

7 Some letters and instructions, not much to his honour, were omitted in this collection, particularly his letters to two popes, and some of those taken in his cabinet at Naseby. Harris, p. 98. 117. Surely it was at least as allowable for his friends to sink what did not tend to his glory, and what were never intended for publication, as it was for his enemies to print his most private correspondences with his wife.

8 Vol. iii. p. 359. and vol. x. p. 76.