THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OP JAMES I. 277 



at home and abroad, the prince's death was considered as a great 

 national loss ;* but so little did the king seem to be affected by it, 

 that, after a short interval, all persons were forbidden to appear 

 before him in mourning ; and special directions were also issued 

 that the preparations for the Christmas festivities should meet with 

 no interruption — while, three days after Henry's demise, Rochester 

 had orders to direct Sir Thomas Edmonds, at Paris, to open over- 

 tures for a marriage between Prince Charles and Christine, the se- 

 cond daughter of the late King of France ; but a sense of decency 

 and a sense of general reproach prevented the ambassador from com- 

 plying immediately with these instructions. 



The following letter of the Earl of Dorset to the same ambassa- 

 dor is particularly deserving of remark : — " That our rising sun is 

 set, ere scarcely he had shone, and that with him all our glory lies 

 buried, you know and do lament as well as we ; and better than 

 some do, and more truly, or else you are not a man and sensible of 



■ Few eyes were dry, few hearts untouched, if we are to believe the 

 Secretary of Sir Thomas Edmonds, at the loss " of the flower of the house, 

 the glory of his country, and the admiration of all strangers, which in all 

 places had imprinted a great hope iii the mmds of the well affected, as it has 

 already stricken terror into the hearts of his enemies." So writes M . Bu- 

 lieu to Mr. Trumbolt, then President at Brussels. The Universities la- 

 mented the Prince in sermons and Latin orations. Chapman, Webster, 

 Heywood, Withers, Maxwell, and other poets of his day, sang his praises. 

 One, however, of the tribe, was silent on the occasion — " the rare Ben 

 Jonson." A circumstance which wiU contribute to justify the general 

 belief, that James was more willing that England's dnrling, as the Prince 

 was styled, should be decried than extolled ; for though Jonson was not 

 appointed Laureate, yet he was the Court Minstrel. The following strains 

 for extravagant conceptions out-top all that we have met with in poetic 

 commendation of Henry. 



" See where he shineth yonder 

 A fixed Star in Heaven 

 Whose motion here came under 

 None of the planet's seven. 

 If that the Moone should tender 

 The Sun her love and marry. 

 The)' both could not engender 

 So sweet a Star as Harry." 



Verses written upon Prince Henry's death by Hugh Holland, Fellow of 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, apud Laud, M. S. For the same prodigal use 

 of laudatory superlatives in prose, sec a Funeral Oration entitled " Lncrynuc 

 Tumulo 7iunquamsatis laudalis Heroes Henrici Fndenci Sluarli a Gualtero 

 Daraltlsono Scoto." Brit. Sedani, 1613. 



