voted head. And thus the historian conveniently solves al ambiguous events. The character of James I. is a moral phenomenon, a singu larity of a complex nature. We see that we cannot trust to those modern writers who have passed their censures upon him, however just may be those very censures; for when we look narrowly into their representations, as surely we find, perhaps without an exception, that an invective never closes without some unexpected mitigating circumstance, or quali fying abatement. At the moment of inflicting the censure, some recollection in opposition to what is asserted passes in the mind, and to approximate to Truth, they offer a dis crepancy, a self-contradiction. James must always be condemned on a system, while his apology is only allowed the benefit of a parenthesis. How it has happened that our luckless crowned philosopher has been the common mark at which so many quivers have been emptied, should be quite obvious when so many causes were operating against him. The shifting positions into which he was cast, and the ambiguity of his character, will unriddle the enigma of his life. Contrarieties cease to be contradictions when operated on by external causes. James was two persons in one, frequently opposed to each other. He was an antithesis in human nature or even a solecism. We possess ample evidence of his shrewdness and of his simplicity; we find the lofty regal style mingled with his familiar bonhommie. Warm, hasty, and volatile, yet with the most patient zeal to disentangle involved deception; such gravity in sense, such levity in humour; such wariness and such indiscretion; such mystery and such openness—all these must have often thrown his Majesty into some awkward dilemmas. He was a man of abstract speculation in the theory of human affairs; too witty or too aphoristic, he never seemed at a loss to decide, but too careless, perhaps too infirm, ever to come to a decision, he leaned on others. He shrunk from the council-table; he had that distaste for the routine of business which studious sedentary men are too apt to indulge; and imagined that his health, which he said was the health of the kingdom, depended on the alternate days which he devoted to the chase; Royston and Theobalds were more delectable than a deputation from the Commons, or the Court at Whitehall. It has not always been arbitrary power which has forced e people into the dread circle of their fate, seditions, rebelons, and civil wars; nor always oppressive taxation which as given rise to public grievances. Such were not the crimes F James the First. Amid the full blessings of peace, we find ow the people are prone to corrupt themselves, and how a hilosopher on the throne, the father of his people, may live ithout exciting gratitude, and die without inspiring regretnregarded, unremembered! INDEX. ABERNETHY'S opinion of enthusiasm, 145. ABSTRACTION of mind in great men, ACTORS, traits of character in great, ADRIAN VI., Pope, persecutes literary ESTHETIC Critics, 282. AKENSIDE on the nature of genius, 30. ness of his character, 96; excited ANXIETY of genius, 74; of authors ART FRIENDSHIPS, 209-210. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, its interest, 295. BARRY the painter, his love of ancient fect on himself of metaphysical BIRCH, Dr., and Robertson the His- BOOK COLLECTORS, 227-231. Bosius, his researches in the Roman BOYLE on the disposition of child- hood, 31; his advertisement against BRUCE the traveller disbelieved, 78. 92. BUONAPARTE revives old military BURNS's diary of the heart, 71. BUNYAN a self-taught genius, 60. CALUMNY frequently attacks genius, 185. CANTENAC and his autobiography, CARACCI, the, their unfortunate jea- CASTAGNO murders a rival artist, 157. 95. CHATHAM, Earl of, his constancy of CHENKER a literarv fratricide, 173. COACHES, their first invention, 359. COMPOSITION, its toils, 80-81. CONVERSATIONS of men of genius, COTIN, Abbé, troubled by wealth, 188. tions of art and literature, n., 13. CRITICISM not always just, 65-75. genius, 26. CUVIER'S discoveries in natural his- DANTE, his great abstraction of mind, DEATHS of literary men, 243. DISEASE induced by severe study, 147. demned, 355-364. DOMESTIC life of literary men, 173- 186. DREAMS of eminent men, 127-128. ENGLAND and its tastes, 264. FAMILY affection an incentive to genius, 179-182. FENELON'S early enthusiasm for FIRST STUDIES of great men, 55-59; FORKS, when first used, 356. GALILEO invents the pendulum, 132. GLEIM and his portrait gallery, 211, GOLDONI Overworks his mind, 147. GUIBERT, his great work on military HABITUAL PURSUITS, their power 92. HELMONT'S (Van) love of study, 152. |