Sir Edward Walker's "Hist. Discourses," p. 321; and
Barrington's "Observ. on the Statutes," who says, "For this he deserves
the highest praise and commendation from a nation of islanders."]

[Footnote C: Harl. MSS. 646.]

Another contemporary author, Wilson, has not ill-traced the generations
of this continued peace--"peace begot plenty, plenty begot ease and
wantonness, and ease and wantonness begot poetry, and poetry swelled out
into that bulk in this king's time which begot monstrous satyrs." Such
were the laseivious times, which dissolving the ranks of society in a
general corruption, created on one part the imaginary and unlimited wants
of prosperity; and on the other produced the riotous children of
indolence, and the turbulent adventurers of want. The rank luxuriance of
this reign was a steaming hot-bed of peace, which proved to be the
seed-plot of that revolution which was reserved for the unfortunate son.

In the subsequent reign a poet seems to have taken a retrospective view of
the age of peace of James I. contemplating on its results in his own
disastrous times--

--States that never know
A change but in their growth, which a long peace
Hath brought unto perfection, are like steel,
Which being neglected will consume itself
With its own rust; so doth Security
Eat through the hearts of states, while they are sleeping
And lulled into false quiet.

NABB'S _Hannibal and Scipio_.

* * * * *

SUMMARY OF HIS CHARACTER.

Thus the continued peace of James I. had calamities of its own! Are we to
attribute them to the king? It has been usual with us, in the solemn
expiations of our history, to convert the sovereign into the scape-goat
for the people; the historian, like the priest of the Hebrews, laying his
hands on Azazel,[A] the curses of the multitude are heaped on that devoted
head. And thus the historian conveniently solves all ambiguous events.

[Footnote A: The Hebrew name, which Calmet translates _Bouc Emissaire_,
and we _Scape Goat_, or rather _Escape Goat_.]

The character of James I. is a moral phenomenon, a singularity of a
complex nature. We see that we cannot trust to those modern writers who
have passed their censures upon him, however just may be those very
censures; for when we look narrowly into their representations, as surely
we find, perhaps without an exception, that an invective never closes
without some unexpected