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Peace abroad, union at home, and the civihzation of the ruder 

 classes of his people, were the fundamental maxims of his politics. 

 His love for peace gained him no credit, as it ill accorded with 

 the temper of the times. His passion for uniformity in religion be- 

 trayed him into persecution ; but such as was sanctioned by the 

 practices and prejudices of the age, or the authority and example of 

 his progenitors. His plans for the improvement of his dominions 

 were grander and more successful than those of his most renowned 

 predecessors. Elizabeth had suffered the orders of nobility and 

 knighthood to decline ; he reinforced them, and added the interme- 

 diate rank of baronets, an hereditary honour, as Cicero studied to 

 augment the influence of the knights, and to attach them to the 

 senate. Arbitrary princes wish to keep the nobles in dependence, 

 under their own eye, as ornaments to their courts, and plume them- 

 selves on the size and magnificence of their capitals : James advised 

 the nobility and gentry to reside on their estates, exercise hospi- 

 tality, and cultivate their influence in the country ; and took mea- 

 sures to check the increase of London, comparing it to the spleen,i 

 " which as in measure it overgrows, the body wastes ;" and pro- 

 bably foreseeing its exorbitant ascendancy over the nation. In 

 Scotland, on the other hand, where the nobility were too powerful,! 

 he restored the third estate in parliament, by reviving the represen- 

 tation of the commons, or lesser barons. In England, he bullied 

 his parliament, as long as it was safe, and then soothed them with, 

 popular concessions, the limitation of the Nullum Tempus Law, 

 and the abolition of oppressive monopolies, and vexatious grants 

 made by himself and Elizabeth; setting a wholesome but fruitless 

 example to his successor. I 



He seems, indeed, to have had a presentiment of danger from tlie 

 state of parties, and a prophetic discernment of individual charac- 



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