THE CHARACTEll AND CONDUCT OF JAMES I. 287 



character of James? He would have expatiated triumphantly 

 upon them, it may be said, if he had been acquainted with these 

 facts. Admitting this to be the case, we shall exhibit them to the 

 notice of the reader, not merely because they help to deepen the 

 chorus of testimonies against James, but because this truth becomes 

 in a ten-fold degree more perspicuous that Burnett has not trans- 

 gressed the bounds of moderation and charity in judging of the king. 

 In the height of his admiration for the " sovereign author," Mr. 

 D'Israeli would have us believe — for he really seems disposed to re- 

 present him as the almost faultless model of a king, one of the deli- 

 cice huma?ii generis — that all the sentiments of his hero were most 

 lofty and philanthropic — that there was a thoughtful humanity — 

 that he sat enthroned in goodness as in power — and that when com- 

 pelled to launch the state thunder, mercy always tempered the bolt. 

 " His platonic conceptions," he says, " inspired the most exalted 

 feelings ; but his gentle nature never led to one act of unfeeling 

 despotism. His sceptre was wreathed with the roses of his fancy ; 

 the iron of arbitrary power only struck into the heart in the suc- 

 ceeding reign. James onlif menaced with an abstract notion ;* or, 

 in anger, with his own hand would tear out a protestation from the 

 journals of the commons. And when he considered a man as past 

 forgiveness, he condemned him to a slight imprisonment, or moved 

 him to a distant employment ; or, if an author, like Coke and Cow- 

 ell, sent him into retirement to correct his works."t We, however, 

 are greatly mistaken, if we have not in James's conduct positive 

 proof that the praise thus claimed for him is not his right. 



In a collection of criminal trials of Scotland, recently given to 

 the public by Mr. Pitcairne, the reader will find some statements 

 relative to James VI. of Scotland, in which there is despotism in 

 its worst form. " His conduct,'' observes an acute historical critic, 

 " was an uniform system of tyranny, prosecuted according to his ta- 

 lents.":}: Judging, then, from facts, we are necessitated to infer, 

 that, whatever indifference or neglect the Scottish monarch might 

 have shewn to the rights of others, when his own person or under- 



• This assertion will surely not be deemed quite correspondent with facts, 

 when it is remembered, that at the very commencement of his reign, James 

 sentenced a thief to the gallows without trial or defence. " I hear our new 

 king" says Sir John Harrington, " has hanged one man before he was tried; 

 it is strangely done— now if the wind bloweth thus, why may not a man bo 

 tried before he is hanged." — Nugu- AiUlq., vol. i., p. 180. 



■f See Inquiry into the Character of Jcniicn, Sj;c., p. 12(5. 



.t See Millar's JJislorical View of the English Government, vol. iii., p. 17'!- 



