before my text. So had, and so did King James. Lastly, before any hostile act we read of in the history, King Solomon died in peace, when he had lived about sixty years, as Lyra and Tostatus are of opinion; and so, you know, did King James.

"And as for his words and eloquence, you know it well enough; it was rare and excellent in the highest degree. Solomon, speaking of his own faculty in this kind, divides it into two several heads,—a ready invention, and an easy discharge and expression of the same. "God hath granted me to speak as I would, and to conceive as is meet, for the things spoken of.' Wisd. vii. 15. And this was eminent in our late sovereign. His invention was as quick as his first thoughts, and his words as ready as his invention. God hath given him to conceive; the Greek word in that place is evovunova, that is, to make an enthymem or a short syllogism; and that was his manner. He would first wind up the whole substance of his discourse into one solid and massive conception, and then spread it and dilate it to what compass he pleased, profluenti et quæ principem deceret eloquentia,' (as Tacitus said of Augustus)-in a flowing and a princely kind of elocution. Those speeches of his in the Parliament, Star-Chamber, Council-Table, and other publick audiences of the State, (of which, as of Tully's orations, ea semper optima, quæ maxima,' the longest still was held the best,) do prove him to be the most powerful speaker that ever swayed the scepter of this kingdom. In his style you may observe the Ecclesiastes, in his figures the Canticles, in his sentences the Proverbs, and in his whole discourse Reliquum verborum Salomonis, all the rest that was admirable in the eloquence of Solomon.

6

"How powerful did he charge the Prince with the care of religion and justice, the two pillars (as he termed them) of his future throne? How did he recommend unto his love, the nobility, the clergy, and the commonalty in the general? How did he thrust, as it were, into his inward bosom, his bishops, his judges, his near servants, and that disciple of his whom he so loved in particular? And concluded with that heavenly advice

*

* Duke of Buckingham. [Note in the original.]

to his son, concerning that great act of his future marriage, to marry like himself, and marry where he would: but if he did marry the daughter of that King, he should marry her person, but he should not marry her religion." -Rushworth, vol. i. pp. 160,161.

Now what was in reality the man who, by virtue of Divine right, was thus highly extolled by such grave authorities as the Lord High Chancellor Bacon, the Lord Keeper and Lord Bishop Williams, and the Lord Primate of all England, Laud? The evidence is conclusive as regards the answer to that question: but it is also voluminous; too much so for this place. Much of it too is unfit for publication. Much, however, of a very significant description, has been published, under the sanction too of most respectable names-ex. gr. Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hailes), and Sir Walter Scott (edition of Somers's Tracts).

There is a small volume, entitled 'Memorials, and Letters relating to the history of Britain in the reign of James the First, published from the originals,-Glasgow, 1762,' with a short preface, signed Dav. Dalrymple, purporting that the collection is made from many volumes of letters and memorials, relating to the history of Britain during the seventeenth century, preserved in the library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh; from which, as it is very little known, and certainly tends to throw some new lights on certain historical characters, we shall cull a few flowers, or weeds, as the reader may please to consider them; and be it remarked that, in so doing, the decency of modern manners totally precludes even the most distant allusion to some of the vices of this modern Solomon.

The first extract we shall give is the postscript to a letter from the Duke of Buckingham to King James. It begins "Dear dad and gossip," and is signed "Your Majesty's most humble slave and dog, Stinie."

"Here is a gentleman, called Sir Francis Leake, who hath likewise a philosopher's stone; 'tis worth but eight thousand; he will give it me, if you will make him a baron.

I will, if you command not the contrary, have

Hobbes said of Bishop Bramhall's style, to "the kingdom of darkness," with the affairs of which we are not much acquainted. We shall therefore pick out a brick or two here and there, which, as the author's performance is not so much a regular building as a mass of rubbish, may be considered as a fair sample of the whole.

The following is an example of the learned doctor's genius for division; he is talking of Saul :"God first, sent,

And secondly, shewed,
And thirdly, chose,
And fourthly, anointed,

And fifthly, found them out a king, before

ever it is said, they made him.”—p. 2.

We should have thought the fifth number of this grand enumeration should have come first. Not so the doctor. He anoints his king before he finds him, as, no doubt, he would fry his fish before he catched them.

There have been disputes among divines as to who Melchizedek, king of Salem, was. Dr. T. B. knows all about him. He says, p. 5,-" Neither will we speak of the king, or the first of the kings of Judah or Israel; but we will go along with the first king that ere was read of (if there be not books antienter than the books of Moses), and that was Melchizedek, king of Salem; this Melchizedek is said to have neither father nor mother; it could not be said so in regard of his person, for we all know who he was, and who his father and mother were."

Who was he, then? and what is the doctor's inference?

"He was Sem, the oldest son of Noah; but it was said so, in respect of his office; showing us that kings, they are not the offspring of men, but an emanation from the Deity; and teaching us that as kings are not of the people's making, so they ought not to be of the people's marring; and as they are not the founders, so they ought not to be the confounders. If thou destroyest that which another hath built, thou maist chance to be sued for dilapidations. If a limner draw a picture, he may alter and change it, and if he dislike it, rase it out

at his pleasure; or, if a carver or ingraver mislikes his own handywork, he may destroy it when he pleases; but if God makes a man after his own image, and creates him after his own similitude, wee offend God in a high degree when we cut off or deface the least part or member of his handywork.

"Now kings are lively representations, living statues or pictures drawn to the life, of the great Deity: these pictures, for their better continuance, are done in oyle; the colours of the crown never fade, they are no water colours."-p. 6.

In the 2nd chapter the learned doctor discusses the question, whether the people can make " an anointed king, or not," and, as might be surmised, determines it in the negative. "For my own part," says he, p. 9, "I should be ashamed to weere a crown on my head, when the people must raign, and the king stand under the penthouse; and I had as leve they should make me a Jack-a-lent, for apprentices to throw their cudgels at me, as to make me a king to be controuled by their masters, and every tribune of the people; for, as an invitation to a dinner where there is no meat is but a distastfull banquet, so the name of a king, without its adjuncts, is but a savourless renown."

Chapter III. treats of the "Anointing of kings."

"Anointing is a sacred signature, betokening sovereignty, obedience to the throne, submission to the scepter, allegiance to the crown; and supremacy to the oyle must needs be given, for oyle will have it: pour oyle, and wine, and water, and vinegar, or what other liquor you please, together, oyle will be sure to be the uppermost."-p. 13.

As Swift held the coat to be the man, our doctor holds the "oyle " to be the king. He is nothing without the "oyle." At p. 17, by a somewhat bold figure, he denominates kings " sons of oyle!" Prince Henry, however, calls Falstaff an "oily rascal."

From the above circumstance the doctor informs us that " some have maintained that a king is mixta persona cum sacerdote: whether he be so or no I will not

VOL. II.

G

here insist; but sure I am, that there is much divinity in the very name and essence of kings." The worthy doctor has a penchant for rhetoric, which he evidently takes to be, according to the definition of Hobbes, "the art of garnishing speech, whereby it is beautified and made fine."

At p. 15, the doctor says, that kings, "by reason of their proximity and neernes unto God, in some respects are most commonly of more discerning spirits than ordinary men." He admits however, p. 17, that the king

hath a soul to be saved as well as others."

The doctor sums up his chapter on Oyle in the following weighty manner :

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Lastly, Kings are the Lord's anointed, because they are anointed with his own oyle, oleo sancto meo, with my holy oyl have I anointed him, Psal. lxxxix. 20. It is not with any common or vulgar oyl, or oyl that any laies claim to but himself; but it is oleo meo, my oyl: neither is it oyl that was fetched out of any common shop or warehouse; but it is oleo sancto, with holy oyl, oyl out of the sanctuary; and no question but this is a main reason (if they would speak out) why some have such an aking tooth at the sanctuaries; because they maintain in them oyl for the anointing of kings: but if the alabaster box were broken, the ointment wd soon be lost; if they cd persuade the king out of the church into the barne, they wd soon pull a reed out of the thatch, to put into his hand instead of a scepter; or if they cd get him to hear sermons under a hedge, there wd not be materials wanting to make a crown of thorns to plait it on his head.”—p. 23.

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Oyle," however, is the doctor's hobby. He returns to it again by a wonderful stretch of ingenuity, in the following chapter, at p. 33, where he is proving that bad kings, as well as good, are to be held sacred and divine. "When in the cave of Engiddi, David mt have cut off Saul's head; like precious oyntment, he descends only to the skirts of his garment, and with a quid feci? checks himself, and beshrews his heart that he had done so much," &c. After adducing many such cases from Holy