Spaniards: a visionary island, and a
secret mine, would often disturb the dreams of these unemployed youths,
with whom it was no uncommon practice to take a purse on the road. Such
felt that--

--in this plenty
And fat of peace, our young men ne'er were train'd
To martial discipline, and our ships unrigg'd
Rot in the harbour.

MASSINGER.

[Footnote A: "Five Years of King James." Harl. Misc.]

[Footnote B: A. Wilson's "Hist. of James I." p. 28.]

[Footnote C: That ancient oppressive institution of the Court of Wards
then existed; and Massinger, the great painter of our domestic manners in
this reign, has made it the subject of one of his interesting dramas.]

The idleness which rusts quiet minds effervesces in fiery spirits pent up
together; and the loiterers in the environs of a court, surfeiting with
peace, were quick at quarrel. It is remarkable, that in the pacific reign
of James I. never was so much blood shed in brawls, nor duels so
tremendously barbarous. Hume observed this circumstance, and attributes it
to "the turn that the romantic chivalry, for which the nation was formerly
so renowned, had lately taken." An inference probably drawn from the
extraordinary duel between Sir Edward Sackville, afterwards Lord Dorset,
and the Lord Bruce.[A] These two gallant youths had lived as brothers, yet
could resolve not to part without destroying each other; the narrative so
wonderfully composed by Sackville, still makes us shudder at each blow
received and given. Books were published to instruct them by a system of
quarrelling, "to teach young gentlemen when they are beforehand and when
behindhand;" thus they incensed and incited those youths of hope and
promise, whom Lord Bacon, in his charge on duelling, calls, in the
language of the poet, _Aurorae filii,_ the sons of the morning,--who often
were drowned in their own blood! But, on a nearer inspection, when we
discover the personal malignity of these hasty quarrels, the coarseness of
their manners, and the choice of weapons and places in their mode of
butchering each other, we must confess that they rarely partake of the
spirit of chivalry. One gentleman biting the ear of a Templar, or
switching a poltroon lord; another sending a challenge to fight in a
saw-pit; or to strip to their shirts, to mangle each other, were
sanguinary duels, which could only have fermented in the disorders of