court the public favour before they attain supreme power, and
then change their nature!" Such is the egotism of republicanism!

[Footnote A: "Rushworth," vol. i. p. 54.]

[Footnote B: From a MS. of the times.]

* * * * *

SCANDALOUS CHRONICLES.

The character of James I. has always been taken from certain scandalous
chronicles, whose origin requires detection. It is this mud which has
darkened and disturbed the clear stream of history. The reigns of
Elizabeth and James teemed with libels in church and state from opposite
parties: the idleness of the pacific court of James I. hatched a viperous
brood of a less hardy, but perhaps of a more malignant nature, than the
Martin Mar-prelates of the preceding reign. Those boldly at once wrote
treason, and, in some respects, honestly dared the rope which could only
silence Penry and his party; but these only reached to _scandalum
magnatum_, and the puny wretches could only have crept into a pillory. In
the times of the Commonwealth, when all things were agreeable which
vilified our kings, these secret histories were dragged from their lurking
holes. The writers are meagre Suetoniuses and Procopiuses; a set of
self-elected spies in the court; gossipers, lounging in the same circle;
eaves-droppers; pryers into corners; buzzers of reports; and punctual
scribes of what the French (so skilful in the profession) technically term
_les on dit_; that is, things that might never have happened, although
they are recorded: registered for posterity in many a scandalous
chronicle, they have been mistaken for histories; and include so many
truths and falsehoods, that it becomes unsafe for the historian either to
credit or to disbelieve them.[A]

[Footnote A: Most of these works were meanly printed, and were usually
found in a state of filth and rags, and would have perished in their own
merited neglect, had they not been recently splendidly reprinted by Sir
Walter Scott. Thus the garbage has been cleanly laid on a fashionable
epergne, and found quite to the taste of certain lovers of authentic
history! Sir Anthony Weldon, clerk of the king's kitchen, in his "Court of
King James" has been reproached for gaining much of his scandalous
chronicle from the purlieus of the court. For this work and some similar
ones, especially "The None-Such Charles," in which it would appear that he
had procured materials from the State Paper Office, and for other zealous
servi