and their value. Our royal author has drawn his
principles of government from the classical volumes of antiquity; for then
politicians quoted Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. His waters had, indeed,
flowed over those beds of ore;[A] but the growth and vigour of the work
comes from the mind of the king himself: he writes for the Prince of
Scotland, and about the Scottish people. On its first appearance Camden
has recorded the strong sensation it excited: it was not only admired, but
it entered into and won the hearts of men. Harris, forced to acknowledge,
in his mean style and with his frigid temper, that "this book contains
some tolerable things," omits not to hint that "it might not be his own:"
but the claims of James I. are evident from the peculiarity of the style;
the period at which it was composed; and by those particular passages
stamped with all the individuality of the king himself. The style is
remarkable for its profuse sprinkling of Scottish and French words, where
the Doric plainness of the one, and the intelligent expression of the
other, offer curious instances of the influence of manners over language;
the diction of the royal author is a striking evidence of the intermixture
of the two nations, and of a court which had marked its divided interests
by its own chequered language.

[Footnote A: James, early in life, was a fine scholar, and a lover of
the ancient historians, as appears from an accidental expression of
Buchanan's, in his dedication to James of his "Baptistes;" referring to
Sallust, he adds, _apud_ TUUM _Salustium_.]

This royal manual still interests a philosophical mind; like one of those
antique and curious pictures we sometimes discover in a cabinet,--studied
for the costume; yet where the touches of nature are true, although the
colouring is brown and faded; but there is a force, and sometimes even a
charm, in the ancient simplicity, to which even the delicacy of taste may
return, not without pleasure. The king tells his son:--

"Sith all people are naturally inclined to follow their prince's example,
in your own person make your wordes and deedes to fight together; and let
your own life be a law-book and a mirror to your people, that therein they
may read the practice of their own lawes, and see by your image what life
they should lead.

"But vnto one faulte is all the common people of this kingdome subject, as
well burgh as land; which is, to judge and speak rashly of their prince,
se