introduced which in English dispositions begot contempt;
the king could not employ them all; some grew envious, some factious, some
ingrateful, however obliged, by being once denied."--P. 302.]

[Footnote B: One may conjecture, by this expression, that the term of
"wits" was then introduced, in the sense we now use it.]

[Footnote C: Wilson has preserved a characteristic trait of one of the
lady wits. When Gondomar one day, in Drury-lane, was passing Lady Jacob's
house, she, exposing herself for a salutation from him, he bowed, but in
return she only opened her mouth, gaping on him. This was again repeated
the following day, when he sent a gentleman to complain of her incivility.
She replied, that he had purchased some favours of the ladies at a dear
rate, and she had a mouth to be stopped as well as others.]

This coarseness of manners, which still prevailed in the nation, as it had
in the court of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, could not but influence the
familiar style of their humour and conversation. James I., in the Edict on
Duels, employs the expression of _our dearest bedfellow_ to designate the
queen; and there was no indelicacy attached to this singular expression.
Much of that silly and obscene correspondence of James with Buckingham,
while it adds one more mortifying instance of "the follies of the wise,"
must be attributed to this cause.[A] Are not most of the dramatic works of
that day frequently unreadable from this circumstance? As an historian, it
would be my duty to show how incredibly gross were the domestic language
and the domestic familiarities of kings, queens, lords, and ladies, which
were much like the lowest of our populace. We may felicitate ourselves on
having escaped the grossness, without, however, extending too far these
self-congratulations.

[Footnote A: Our wonder and surmises have been often raised at the strange
subscriptions of Buckingham to the king,--"Your dog," and James as
ingenuously calling him "dog Steenie." But this was not peculiar to
Buckingham; James also called the grave Cecil his "little beagle." The
Earl of Worcester, writing to Cecil, who had succeeded in his search after
one Bywater, the earl says, "If the _king's beagle_ can hunt by land as
well as he hath done _by water_, we will leave capping of _Jowler_, and
cap the _beagle_." The queen, writing to Buckingham to intercede with the
king for Rawleigh's life, addresses Buckingham by "My kind Dog." James
appears to hav