hness of the materials, often drawn
from contemporary writings which have never been published, may in some
respect gratify curiosity. Of the _political_ character of James the First
opposite tempers will form opposite opinions; the friends of peace and
humanity will consider that the greatest happiness of the people is that
of possessing a philosopher on the throne; let profounder inquirers
hereafter discover why those princes are suspected of being but weak men,
who are the true fathers of their people; let them too inform us, whether
we are to ascribe to James the First, as well as to Marcus Antoninus, the
disorders of their reign, or place them to the ingratitude and wantonness
of mankind.

AN INQUIRY

INTO THE

LITERARY AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF
JAMES THE FIRST;

INCLUDING A SKETCH OF HIS AGE.

* * * * *

If sometimes the learned entertain false opinions and traditionary
prejudices, as well as the people, they however preserve among themselves
a paramount love of truth, and the means to remove errors, which have
escaped their scrutiny. The occasion of such errors may be complicate,
but, usually, it is the arts and passions of the few which find an
indolent acquiescence among the many, and firm adherents among those who
so eagerly consent to what they do not dislike to hear.

A remarkable instance of this appears in the character of James the First,
which lies buried under a heap of ridicule and obloquy; yet James the
First was a literary monarch at one of the great eras of English
literature, and his contemporaries were far from suspecting that his
talents were inconsiderable, even among those who had their reasons not to
like him. The degradation which his literary character has suffered has
been inflicted by more recent hands; and it may startle the last echoer of
Pope's "Pedant-reign" to hear that more wit and wisdom have been
recorded of James the First than of any one of our sovereigns. An
"Author-Sovereign," as Lord Shaftesbury, in his anomalous but emphatic
style, terms this class of writers, is placed between a double eminence of
honours, and must incur the double perils; he will receive no favour from
his brothers, the _Faineants_, as a whole race of ciphers in succession on
the throne of France were denominated, and who find it much mo