monopolies were then abolished. The king and the prince shed reciprocal tears in the house; and the prince wept when he brought an affectionate message of thanks from the Commons. The letter-writer says, "It is a day worthy to be kept holiday; some say it shall, but I believe them not." It never was; for even this parliament broke up with the cries of “some tribunitial orators," as James designated the pure and the impure democratic spirits. Smollett remarks in his margin, that the king endeavoured to cajole the Commons. Had he known of the royal tears, he had still heightened the phrase. Hard fate of kings! Should ever their tears attest the warmth of honest feelings, they must be thrown out of the pale of humanity for Francis Osborne, that cynical republican, declares, that "there are as few abominable princes as tolerable kings; because princes must court the public favour before they attain supreme power, and then change their nature!" Such is the egotism of republicanism!

SCANDALOUS CHRONICLES.

Such was the race generated in this court of peace and indolence! And Hacket, in his Life of the Lord-Keeper Williams, without disguising the

would have perished in their own merited neglect, had they not been recently splendidly reprinted by Sir Walter Scott. Thus the garbage has been cleanly laid on a fashionable epergne, and found quite to the taste of certain lovers of authentic history! Sir Anthony Weldon, clerk of the King's kitchen, in his "Court of King James" has been reproached for gaining much of his scandalous chronicle from the purlieus of the court. For this work and some similar ones, especially "The None-Such Charles," in which it would appear that he had procured materials from the State Paper Office, and for other zealous services to the Parliament, they voted him a grant of £500. "The five years of King James," which passes under the name of Sir Fulk Greville, the dignified friend of the romantic Sir Philip Sidney, and is frequently referred to by grave writers, is certainly a Presbyterian's third day's hash, for there are parts copied from Arthur THE character of James I. has always been Wilson's History of James I. who was himself the taken from certain scandalous chronicles, whose pensioner of a disappointed courtier; yet this origin requires detection. It is this mud which writer never attacks the personal character of the has darkened and disturbed the clear stream of king, though charged with having scraped up history. The reigns of Elizabeth and James many tales maliciously false.-Osborne is a misanteemed with libels in church and state from thropical politician, who cuts with the most coropposite parties: the idleness of the pacific court roding pen that ever rottened a man's name. of James I. hatched a viperous brood of a less James was very negligent in dress; graceful hardy, but perhaps of a more malignant nature, appearances did not come into his studies.— than the Martin Mar-prelates of the preceding Weldon tells us how the king was trussed on reign. Those boldly at once wrote treason, and, horseback, and fixed there like a pedlar's pack, or in some respects, honestly dared the rope which a lump of inanimate matter; the truth is, the could only silence Penry and his party; but these king had always an infirmity in his legs. Further only reached to scandalum magnatum, and the we are told, that this ridiculous monarch allowed puny wretches could only have crept into a pillory. his hat to remain just as it chanced to be placed In the times of the commonwealth, when all things on his head.-Osborne once saw this unlucky were agreeable which vilified our kings, these king "in a green hunting dress, with a feather in secret histories were dragged from their lurking his cap, and a horn, instead of a sword, by his holes. The writers are meagre Suetoniuses and side; how suitable to his age, calling, or person, Procopiuses; a set of self-elected spies in the I leave others to judge from his pictures:" and court; gossippers, lounging in the same circle; this he bitterly calls " leaving him dressed for eaves-droppers; pryers into corners; buzzers of posterity!" This is the style which passes for reports; and punctual scribes of what the French history with some readers.-Hume observes, that (so skilful in the profession) technically term,“hunting," which was James's sole recreation, les on dit; that is, things that might never necessary for his health, as a sedentary scholar, have happened, although they are recorded:"is the cheapest a king can indulge ;" and, registered for posterity in many a scandalous indeed, the empty coffers of this monarch afforded chronicle, they have been mistaken for histories; no other. and include so many truths and falsehoods, that it becomes unsafe for the historian either to credit or to disbelieve them*.

* Most of these works were meanly printed, and were usually found in a state of filth and rags, and

These pseudo-histories are alluded to by Arthur Wilson, as "monstrous satires against the king's own person, that haunted both court and country," when, in the wantonness of the times, "every little miscarriage, exuberantly branched, so that evil report did often perch on them."-Fuller has

fact, tells us, that the Lord Keeper "spared not for cost to purchase the most certain intelligence, by his fee'd pensioners, of every hour's occurrences at court; and was wont to say, that no man could be a statesman without a great deal of money."

Such was this race of gossippers in the environs of a court, where steeped in a supine lethargy of peace, corrupting or corrupted every man stood for himself through a reckless scene of expedients and of compromises.

OF THE TIME.

wealth in that age, engendered the extremes of A long reign of peace, which had produced luxury and want. Money traders practised the art of decoying the gallant youths of the day into their nets; and transforming, in a certain time, the estates of the country gentlemen into skins of parchment,

"The wax continuing hard, the acres melting." MASSINGER.

We catch many glimpses of these times in another branch of the same family. When newsbooks, as the first newspapers were called, did not A PICTURE OF THE AGE FROM A MS. yet exist to appease the hungering curiosity of the country, a voluminous correspondence was carried on between residents in the metropolis and their country friends: these letters chiefly remain in their MS. state*. Great men then employed a scribe who had a talent this way, and sometimes a confidential friend, to convey to them the secret history of the times; and, on the whole, they are composed by a better sort of writers: for, as they had no other design than to inform their friends of the true state of passing events, they were eager to correct, by subsequent accounts, the lies of the day they sometimes sent down. They have preserved some fugitive events useful in historical researches; but their pens are garrulous,—and it requires some experience to discover the character of the writers, to be enabled to adopt their opinions and their statements. Little things were, however, great matters to these diurnalists; much time was spent in learning of those at court, who had quarrelled, or were on the point; who were seen to have bit their lips, and looked downcast; who was budding, and whose full-blown flower was drooping; then we have the sudden reconcilement and the anticipated fallings out; with a deal of the pourquoi of the pourquoi t.

designated these suspicious scribes as "a generation of the people who, like moths, have lurked under the carpets of the council-table, and even like fleas, have leaped into pillows of the prince's bed-chamber; and, to enhance the reputation of their knowledge, thence derived that of all things which were, or were not, ever done or thought of."-Church Hist. book x. p. 87.

* Mr. Lodge's "Illustrations of British History" is an eminent and elegant work of the minutiæ historica; as are the more recent volumes of Sir Henry Ellis's valuable collections.

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+ Some specimens of this sort of correspondence of the idleness of the times may amuse. The learned Mede, to his friend Sir Martin Stuteville, chronicles a fracas :-" I am told of a great falling out between my Lord Treasurer and my Lord Digby, insomuch that they came to pedlar's blood, and traitor's blood. It was about some money which my Lord Digby should have had, which my Lord Treasurer thought too much for the charge of his employment, and said himself could go in as good a fashion for half the sum. But

Projectors and monopolists, who had obtained patents for licensing all the inns and alehouses; for being the sole venders of manufactured articles, such as gold lace, tobacco-pipes, starch, soap, &c., were grinding and cheating the people to an extent which was not at first understood, although the practice had existed in the former reign. The gentry, whose family pride would vie

my Lord Digby replies, that he could not peddle so well as his lordship."

A lively genius sports with a fanciful pen in conveying the same kind of intelligence, and so nice in the shades of curiosity, that he can describe a quarrel before it takes place.

"You know the primum mobile of our court (Buckingham), by whose motion all the other spheres must move, or else stand still: the bright sun of our firmament, at whose splendour or glooming all our marygolds of the court open or shut. There are in higher spheres as great as he, but none so glorious. But the king is in progress, and we are far from court. Now to hear certainties. It is told me, that my Lord of Pembroke and my Lord of Rochester are so far out, as it is almost come to a quarrel; I know not how true this is, but Sir Thomas Overbury and my Lord of Pembroke have been long jarring, and therefore the other is likely."

Among the numerous MS. letters of this kind, I have often observed the writer uneasy at the scandal he has seasoned his letter with, and concluding earnestly that his letter, after perusal, should be thrown to the flames. A wish which appears to have been rarely complied with; and this may serve as a hint to some to restrain their tattling pens, if they regard their own peace; for, on most occasions of this nature, the letters are rather preserved with peculiar care.

with these nouveaux riches, exhausted themselves in rival profusion; all crowded to "upstart London," deserting their country mansions, which were now left to the care of " a poor alms-woman, or a bed-rid beadsman."

In that day, this abandonment of the ancient country hospitality for the metropolis, and this breaking-up of old family establishments, crowded London with new and distinct races of idlers, or, as they would now be called, unproductive members of society. From a contemporary manuscript, one of those spirited remonstrances addressed to the king, which it was probably thought not prudent to publish, I shall draw some extracts, as a forcible picture of the manners of the age *. Masters of ancient families, to maintain a mere exterior of magnificence in dress and equipage in the metropolis, were really at the same time hiding themselves in penury: they thrust themselves into lodgings, and "five or six knights, or justices of peace," with all their retinue, became the inmates of a shopkeeper; yet these gentlemen had once "kept the rusty chimneys of two or three houses smoking, and had been the feeders of twenty or forty serving-men: a single page, with a guarded coat, served their turn now.

"Every one strives to be a Diogenes in his house and an emperor in the streets; not caring if they sleep in a tub, so they may be hurried in a coach; giving that allowance to horses and mares that formerly maintained houses full of men; pinching many a belly to paint a few backs, and burying all the treasures of the kingdom into a

few citizens' coffers."

flesh; all show, and no substance; all fashion, and no feeding; and fit for no service but masks and May-games. The citizens have dealt with them as it is said the Indians are dealt with; they have given them counterfeit brooches and buglebracelets for gold and silver+; pins and peacock feathers for lands and tenements; gilded coaches and outlandish hobby-horses for goodly castles and ancient mansions; their woods are turned into wardrobes, their leases into laces, and their goods and chattels into guarded coats and gaudy toys. Should your Majesty fly to them for relief, you would fare like those birds that peck at painted fruits; all outside." The writer then describes the affected penurious habits of the grave citizens, who were then preying on the country gentlemen: -"When those big swoln leeches, that have thus sucked them, wear rags, eat roots, speak like jugglers that have reeds in their mouths; look like spittle-men, especially when your Majesty hath occasion to use them; their fat lies in their hearts, their substance is buried in their bowels, and he that will have it must first take their lives. Their study is to get, and their chiefest care to conceal; and most from yourself, gracious sir; not a commo

+ Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir James Mitchell had the monopolies of gold lace, which they sold in a counterfeit state; and, not only cheated the people, but, by a mixture of copper, the ornaments made of it are said to have rotted the flesh. As soon as the grievance was shown to James, he expressed his abhorrence of the practice; and even declared, that no person connected with the "There are now," the writer adds, "twenty villanous fraud should escape punishment. The thousand masterless men turned off, who know brother of his favourite, Buckingham, was known not this night where to lodge, where to eat to- to be one, and with Sir Giles Overreach, (as Masmorrow, and ready to undertake any desperate singer conceals the name of Mompesson) was comcourse." pelled to fly the country. The style of James, Yet there was still a more turbulent and dan- in his speech, is indeed different from kings' gerous race of idlers, in

"A number of younger brothers, of ancient houses, who, nursed up in fulness, pampered in their minority, and left in charge to their elder brothers, who were to be fathers to them, followed them in despair to London, where these untimely born youths are left so bare, that their whole life's allowance was consumed in one year."

The same manuscript exhibits a full and spirited picture of manners in this long period of peace. "The gentry are like owls, all feathers and no

* The MS. is entitled "Balaam's Ass, or a True Discoverie touching the Murmurs and feared Discontents of the Times, directed to King James." Lansdowne Collection, 209. The writer, throughout, speaks of the king with the highest respect.

speeches in parliament: he speaks as indignantly as any individual who was personally aggrieved. "Three patents at this time have been complained of, and thought great grievances; my purpose is to strike them all dead, and, that time may not be lost, I will have it done presently. Had these things been complained of to me, before the parliament, I could have done the office of a just king, and have punished them; peradventure more than now ye intend to do. No private person whatsoever, were he ever so dear unto me, shall be respected by me by many degrees as the public good; and I hope, my lords, that ye will do me that right to publish to my people this my heart purposes. Proceed judicially; spare none, where ye find just cause to punish: but remember, that laws have not their eyes in their necks, but in their foreheads."-Rushworth, vol. i. p. 26.

dity comes from their hand, but you pay a than your Majesty's gentleman usher; one of their noble in the pound for booking, which they call grooms, than your guards. What care they, if it be forbearing*. They think it lost time if they called tribute or no, so long as it comes in termly; or double not their principal in two years. They whether their chamber be called Exchequer, or the have attractive powders to draw these flies into dens of cheaters, so that the money be left there." their claws; they will entice men with honey into This crushing usury seemed to them a real cala. their hives, and with wax entangle them †; they mity; for although in the present extraordinary pack the cards, and their confederates, the lords, age of calculations and artificial wealth, we can deal, by which means no other men have ever suffer "a dunghill-breed of men," like Momgood game. They have in a few years laid up pesson and his contemptible partner of this reign, riches for many, and yet can never be content to to accumulate in a rapid period more than a ducal say-Soul, take thy rest, or hand receive no fortune without any apparent injury to the public more; do no more wrong: but still they labour welfare, the result was different then; the legitito join house to house, and land to land. What mate and enlarged principles of commerce were want they of being kings, but the name ? Look not practised by our citizens in the first era of into the shires and counties, where, with their their prosperity; their absorbing avarice rapidly purchased lordships and manors, one of their private letters has equal power with your Majesty's privy seal. It is better to be one of their hinds,

took in all the exhausting prodigality of the gentry, who were pushed back on the people to prey in their turn on them; those who found their own acres disappearing, became enclosers of commons; this is one of the grievances which Massinger notices, while the writer of the "Five years of King James" tells us that these discontents between the gentry and commonalty, grew out into a petty rebellion; and it appears by Peyton that "divers of the people were hanged up."

*The credit which these knavish traders gave their customers, who could not conveniently pay their money down, was carried to an exorbitant charge since, even in Elizabeth's reign, it was one of the popular grievances brought into parliament it is there called, "A Bill against Double Payments of Book-Debts." One of the country members who made a speech, consisting entirely of proverbs, said, "Pay the reckoning ANECDOTES OF THE MANNERS OF THE overnight, and you shall not be troubled in the morning."

In the life of a famous usurer of that day, who died worth £400,000, an amazing sum at that period, we find numberless expedients and contrivances of the money trader, practised on improvident landholders and careless heirs, to entangle them in his nets. He generally contrived to make the wood pay for the land, which he called "making the feathers pay for the goose." He never pressed hard for his loans, but fondly compared his bonds "to infants, which battle best by sleeping;" to battle, is to be nourished-a term still retained in the battle-book of the university. I have elsewhere preserved the character and habits of the money-dealer in the age of James I. -See "Curiosities of Literature," 11th Edit. p. 228.

AGE.

THE minute picture of the domestic manners of this age exhibits the result of those extremes of prodigality and avarice which struck observers in that contracted circle which then constituted society. The king's prodigal dispensations of honours and titles, seem at first to have been political; for James was a foreigner, and designed to create a nobility, as likewise an inferior order, who might feel a personal attachment for the new monarch; but the facility by which titles were acquired, was one cause which occasioned so many to crowd to the metropolis to enjoy their airy honour by a substantial ruin; knighthood had become so common, that some of the most infamous and criminal characters of this age we find in that rank §. The young females, driven to The unthrift's purse; there being scarce one shire

In Wales or England, where my monies are not
Lent out at usury, the certain hook
To draw in more.

MASSINGER'S City Madam.

§ A statesman may read with advantage Sir Edward Walker on "The inconveniences that have attended the frequent promotions to Titles, since King James came to the crown." Sir Edward appears not to disapprove of these pro

were soliciting the personal notice of Gondomar.

necessity by the fashionable ostentation of their parents, were brought to the metropolis as to a market; "where," says a contemporary, they This coarseness of manners, which still prevailed obtained pensions, or sometimes marriages, by in the nation, as it had in the court of Henry VIII. their beauty." When Gondomar, the Spanish and Elizabeth, could not but influence the familiar ambassador, passed to his house, the ladies were style of their humour and conversation. James I., at their balconies on the watch, to make them- in the Edict on Duels, employs the expression of selves known to him; and it appears that every our dearest bed-fellow to designate the queen ; one of those ladies had sold their favours at a and there was no indelicacy attached to this sindear rate. Among these are some, "who pre-gular expression. Much of that silly and obscene tending to be wits, as they called them," says correspondence of James with Buckingham, while Arthur Wilson*, "or had handsome nieces or it adds one more mortifying instance of "the daughters, drew a great resort to their houses." follies of the wise," must be attributed to this And it appears that Gondomar, to prevent these cause ‡. Are not most of the dramatic works of conversaziones from too freely touching on that day frequently unreadable from this circumSpanish politics, sweetened their silence by his stance? As an historian it would be my duty to presents +. The same grossness of manners was show how incredibly gross were the domestic among the higher females of the age; when we language and the domestic familiarities of kings, see that grave statesman, Sir Dudley Carleton, queens, lords, and ladies, which were much like narrating the adventures of a bridal night, and all the lowest of our populace. We may felicitate "the petty sorceries," the romping of the "great ourselves on having escaped the grossness, without, ladies, who were made shorter by the skirts," we however, extending too far these self-congratudiscover their coarse tastes; but when we find lations. the king going to the bed of the bride in his nightgown, to give a reveille-matin, and remaining a good time in or upon the bed, "Choose which you will believe; " this bride was not more decent than the ladies who publicly, on their balconies,

motions during the first ten years of his reign, but "when alliance to a favourite, riches though gotten in a shop, persons of private estates, and of families whose fathers would have thought themselves highly honoured to have been but knights in Queen Elizabeth's time, were advanced, then the fruits began to appear. The greater nobility were undervalued; the ancient baronage saw inferior families take precedency over them; nobility lost its respect, and a parity in conversation was introduced which in English dispositions begot contempt; the king could not employ them all, some grew envious, some factious, some ingrateful, however obliged, by being once denied." -P. 302.

* One may conjecture, by this expression, that the term of "wits" was then introduced, in the sense we now use it.

+ Wilson has preserved a characteristic trait of one of the lady wits. When Gondomar, one day, in Drury-lane, was passing Lady Jacob's house, she exposing herself for a salutation from him; he bowed, but in return she only opened her mouth, gaping on him. This was again repeated the following day, when he sent a gentleman to complain of her incivility. She replied, that he had purchased some favours of the ladies at a dear rate, and she had a mouth to be stopped as well as others.

The men were dissolved in all the indolence of life and its wantonness; they prided themselves in traducing their own innocence rather than suffer a lady's name to pass unblemished §. The marriage-tie lost its sacredness amid these disorders of social life. The luxurious idlers of that day

Our wonder and surmises have been often raised at the strange subscriptions of Buckingham to the king, "Your dog," and James as ingenuously calling him "dog Steenie." But this was not peculiar to Buckingham; James also called the grave Cecil his "little beagle." The Earl of Worcester, writing to Cecil, who had succeeded in his search after one Bywater, the earl says, "If the king's beagle can hunt by land as well as he hath done by water, we will leave capping of Jowler, and cap the beagle." The queen, writing to Buckingham to intercede with the king for Rawleigh's life, addresses Buckingham by "My kind Dog." James appears to have been always playing on some whimsical appellative by which he characterised his ministers and favourites, analogous to the notions of a huntsman. Many of our writers, among them Sir Walter Scott, have strangely misconceived these playful appellatives, unconscious of the origin of this familiar humour. The age was used to the coarseness. We did not then excel all Europe, as Addison set the model, in the delicacy of humour; indeed, even so late as Congreve's time, they were discussing its essential distinction from wit.

§ The expression of one of these gallants, as preserved by Wilson, cannot be decently given, but is more expressive, p. 147.

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