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I am

sure I have in them is, that I hope they will please you, and that they have all come by and from you. now going to give my Redeemer thanks for my Maker." -Ibid p. 131.

Buckingham often descends again from divinity to dust, as in the following:

"But if these reasons were not, I pray your sowship how can you spend these ten days better in any other place."-Harleian MSS. in the British Museum. No, 6987. fol. 106.

The next letter, which we give entire, shows the fulsome flattery which was administered to this image of the godhead, by those whom he delighted to honour.

Duke of Buckingham to King James.

"Dear Dad and Gossip,

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Though I have received three or four letters from you since I wrote last, yet, as Tom Badger says, I am not behind-hand with you; for I have made a hundred answers to them in my mind; yet none that could satisfy my mind, for kinder letters never servant received from master; and for so great a King to descend so low as to his humblest slave and servant to communicate himself in a style of such good fellowship, with expressions of more care than servants have of masters, than physicians have of their patients, (which hath largely appeared to me in sickness and in health,) of more tenderness than fathers have of children, of more friendship than between. equals, of more affection than between lovers of the best kind, man and wife, what can I return! nothing but silence for if I speak, I must be saucy, and say this, or

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VOL. II.

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short of what is due,-My purveyor, my good fellow, my physician, my maker, my friend, my father, my all, I heartily and humbly thank you for all you do, and all I have. Judge what unequal language this is in itself, but especially considering the thing that must speak it, and the person to whom it must be spoken. Now, tell me whether I have not done discreetly, to be silent all this while; 'tis time I should be so again, or else commit a fault in wearying him that never wearies to do me good. Then thus I'll end. I begin my journey to-morrow. I shall have the Prince to wait of. We shall ly at Theobald's. The one will hunt hinds and does, the other survey the trees, walks, ponds, and deer. The next day after, lay ourselves at your feet, there crave your blessing; then give an account of Theobald's park to the best of men, though not of the kind of man yet made by man, more than man, like a man, both artificial man, and my most natural sovereign, who by innumerable favours hath made me,

"Your Majesty's

"Both humble slave and dog,

"STINIE."

But it would lead us too far from our present subject to go at more length here into an examination of this man's unworthiness to claim the Divine attributes, which were so liberally bestowed upon him by his base and servile courtiers, clerical as well as lay. We shall conclude with a few morsels culled from a book,-one of those presented by George the Third to the British Museum, -entitled, "The Royal Charter granted unto Kings by

God himself, and collected out of his Holy Word in both Testaments. By T. B. Dr. in Divinitie. Whereunto is added by the same author, A short Treatise wherein Episcopacy is proved to be jure divino. London, 1649."

It would be no use attempting to lay before the reader an account of the method and arrangement, where method and arrangement are none, or, if any, belong, as 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 Melchizedec, 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 Melchizedec, king of Salem: this Melchizedec is said to have neither father nor mother; it could not be said so in regard of his person, for wee all know who he was, and who his father and mother were."

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

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"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."

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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 liquour 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 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."

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