e execution made by mee there-anent; beginning ever
rathest at him that yee love best, and is oblished vnto you, to make him
an example to the rest. Make all your reformations to begin at your elbow,
and so by degrees to the extremities of the land."

He would not, however, that the prince should highly contemn the nobility:
"Remember, howe that error brake the king, my grandfather's heart.
Consider that vertue followeth oftest noble blood: the more frequently
that your court can be garnished with them, as peers and fathers of your
land, thinke it the more your honour."

He impresses on the mind of the prince ever to embrace the quarrel of the
poor and the sufferer, and to remember the honourable title given to his
grandfather, in being called "The poor man's king."

* * * * *

OF COLONISING.

James I. had a project of improving the state of those that dwelt in
the isles, "who are so utterly barbarous," by intermixing some of the
semi-civilised Highlanders, and planting colonies among them of inland
subjects.

"I have already made laws against the over-lords, and the chief of their
clannes, and it would be no difficultie to danton them; so rooting out, or
transporting the barbarous and stubborn sort, and planting civilised in
their rooms."

This was as wise a scheme as any modern philosopher could have suggested,
and, with the conduct he subsequently pursued in Ireland, may be referred
to as splendid proofs of the kingly duties so zealously performed by this
monarch.

* * * * *

OF MERCHANTS.

Of merchants, as this king understood the commercial character, he had no
honourable notion.

He says, "They think the whole commonwealth ordained for raising them up,
and accounting it their lawful gain to enrich themselves upon the losses
of the rest of the people."

We are not to censure James I. for his principles of political economy,
which then had not assumed the dignity of a science; his rude and simple
ideas convey popular truths.

* * * * *

REGULATIONS FOR THE PRINCE'S MANNERS AND HABITS.

The last portion of the "Basilicon Doron" is devoted to domestic
regulations for the prince, respecting his manners and habits; which the
king calls "the indifferent actions of a man."

"A king is set as one on a stage, whose smallest actions and gestures all
the people gazinglie do behold; and, however just in the d