THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF JAMES I. 119 



may be taken — every flower in the garden of knowledge may be 

 plucked. The solid earth, the yielding waters, the ambient air, the 

 numerous varieties of organic life, the phenomena of the subtile ele- 

 ments, and the stupendous fabric of the celestial system, may all be 

 searched into, and the symmetry of their structure displayed. Even 

 the mystery of life and immortality and of the creative energy may be 

 investigated, so long as there is a fixed principle to control the feeling 

 of overweening pride, and to teach man that his powers are finite and 

 his wisdom but foolishness. This principle is pure Revealed Religion. 



E. M. 



TWO CHAPTERS, ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE CHARAC- 

 TER AND CONDUCT OF JAMES I. 



" It is scarce hyperbolical to say, that this prince has been the original 

 cause of a series of misfortunes to this nation, as deplorable as a lasting infec- 

 tion in our air, our water, or our earth would have been." — Bolingbroke's 

 Dissertation upon Parties. 



" Maximus in folio, minimus in solio." 



'' The reading of histories may dispose a man to satire ; but the science of 

 history studied in the light of philosophy, as the great drama of an ever un- 

 folding Providence, has a very different effect." — Coleridge, On the Church 

 ■nu/ State. • 



Chapter the Second. 



If James had rendered himself contemptible at home by degrading 

 the character of royalty abroad, he had become still more so, by not 

 displaying the lofty spirit of a king of England on occasions where he 

 ought to have manifested it — by his sneaking, shabby, huckstering, 

 penny wise and pound foolish policy — when, according to every rule 

 of reason and justice, he should have acted up to the dictates of a 

 large and sound policy. In 1G04, by a peace with Philip II., he 

 concluded that war with Spain which Elizabeth's great determination 

 of character bad enabled her to prosecute in the most vigorous man- 



