THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF JAMES I. 285 



tempts to controul and subvert the law, which would have our con- 

 stitution, as the dying Brutus said of virtue, an empty name — to 

 his forced loans and benevolences'* — to his numerous oathst and 

 profane allusions — to his attachment to the cock-pit:|: — to his deep 

 potations at the table|| — to his indecent caresses of his minions§ — 

 to his womanish** fears and credulity tt — to his low curiosity JJ — to 



* To take a single instance, " The Benevolence goes on. A merchant of 

 London had been a cheesemonger, but now rich, was sent for by the Council 

 and required to give the king £200 or to go into the Palatinate and serve the 

 army with cheese, being a man of eighty years of age." See Ellis's Original 

 Letter. Second series, vol. iii., p. 240. 



•f So notorious were his habits of cursing and swearing, that even the 

 players made them the subject of comment on the stage — Boderie, torn, iii., 

 p. 190, 197. The consequence was, that they were for a time expelled the 

 capital Winwood, vol. ii., p. 54. 



X " II vit combattre les cocqs, qui est un plaisir qu'il prend deux fois la 

 semaine Boderie, t. i., p. 156. 



II In the entertainment given by Cecil at Theobald's when Christian IV. 

 of Denmark visited this country, his Britannic Majesty was so inebriated, 

 " that when he got up and would dance with the queen of Sheba, he fell 

 down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to an inner chamber, 

 and laid on a bed of state." — See Harrington's description of this disgusting 

 scene, Nugoe Antiq., vol. i. p. 348, &c. His wet nurse was a drunkard. Nii- 

 tricem unam hahuit ehriosam, so says Sir Theodore Mayerne, Memoranda of 

 King James, AI.S., Sloane, 1679. This, with some, will constitute an apology 

 for his indulgence in this vulgar vice. 



§ Upon this most disgusting subject, see Harrington, Weldon, Osborne, 

 and Raumer's History of XVI. and XVII. Cent., vol. ii., p. 261, 266, and this 

 short but decisive note of his noble Translator — " It is difficult to read the 

 passage without deriving the worst opinion of his habits and those of his 

 favourites." 



•• The following instance of pusillanimity is perfectly ludicrous. " The 

 gentlemen of Grayes Inne to make an end of Christmas on Twelf'e night, in 

 the dead time of the night, shott oft' all the chambers they had borrowed from 

 the Tower, being as many as filled four carts. The king awaked with the 

 noise, started out of his bed, and cried out treason, treason, &c., and that the 

 cittie was in an uprore, in such sort (as is told), that the whole Court was 

 raised and almost in armes, the Earle of Arundell running to the bed 

 chamber with his sworde drawn as to rescue the king's person. These are 

 such things as I heard from Londoners, and so I leave them. Yours to 

 commande, Joseph Meade." — See Ellis's Original Letters, vol. iii., p. 119. 



ff " By the Da?monologia" and " Counter-blast," observes Grainger, 

 .James lost as much reputation as he had gained by his Basilicon Doron. 

 One of the first of his English statutes was an extension of the penalties 

 against crimes of sorcery and witchcraft. " The arguments of tyranny," says 

 Burke, " are as contemptible as its force is dreadful." It constitutes a spec- 

 tacle equally absurd and hoirible, that above an hundred persons should 

 have fallen victims to the superstition of James. 



XX Nursery secrets as well as state ones were equally conuiiittcd to the 



