THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF JAMES I. 143 



as it affected the guilt of Raleigh. For his vouchers, the historian 

 refers us to the third volume of the Harleian Miscellany, No. 2 : 

 but they who are unacquainted with the paper in question, will 

 stare at being told that it bears no signature at all. Not one of the 

 members of the privy council signed it ; and what is still more asto- 

 nishing, from the first to the last page of the paper, it is impossible 

 to find a sentence which can furnish a pretext for the very natural 

 supposition that the declaration at least professed to have their as- 

 sent or sanction. *Not a word further need be said respecting a 

 paper as remarkable for the plausibility of the arguments as for the 

 force of the expressions, and which was in all probability composed 

 by the royal pen : for though the acquirements of kings are in gene- 

 ral magnified, yet whoever examines with attention the Basilicon 

 Doron, and the proclamations, speeches, and messages to parliament 

 of James, will agree with Hume, that " he possessed no mean geni- 

 us." In a case, then, where self was so deeply interested, and 

 where the paramount purpose and end was so completely to crimi- 

 nate Raleigh as to make his death appear a sacrifice to public 

 justice, it is presumable, that James was not so enamoured of the 

 character of a tyrant, however he acted with all its blind reckless- 

 ness on this and other occasions, as to be indifferent to the contempt 

 and abhorrence of posterity, provided that he could escape them by 

 easily taking refuge in the display of his dialectic powers. 



It may be said of Burnett, as it has since been said of another 

 eminent man, though of a very different cast of mind (Priestly), 

 that he followed truth, as a man who hawks follows his sport at 

 full speed, straight forward, looking only upwards, and regardless 

 into what difficulties the chace may lead him. In every point of 

 view, then, it would be prejudice, and not sound criticism to assert, 

 that any thing but sincere love of truth led our historian to declare, 

 " that the whole business of the Earl of Somerset's rise and fall, of 

 the Countess of Essex and Overbury, the putting inferior persons to 

 death for that infamous poisoning, and the sparing of the princi- 

 pals, both the Earle of Somerset and his Lady, were so odious and 

 inhuman, that it quite sunk the reputation of a reign that on many 

 other accounts, was already much exposed to contempt and censure; 

 which was the more sensible, because it succeeded such a glorious and 

 happy one."t Yet in thus alluding to the mysterious tale of Over- 



• This paper ia also published in Somen's Tracts, vol. ii, p. 18; and with 

 it a miserable defence tin- Sir Richard Stukely, who betrayed Raleigh. 



f HiitOnj of hit turn Time, vol i. 



