fooling got them more than any others wisdome; Zouch's part was to
sing bawdy songs, and tell bawdy tales; Finit's to compose these songs:
there was a set of fiddlers brought to court on purpose for this
fooling, and Goring was master of the game for fooleries, sometimes
presenting David Droman and Archee Armstrong, the kings foole, on the
back of the other fools, to tilt one at another, till they fell together
by the eares; sometimes they performed antick dances. But Sir John
Millicent (who was never known before) was commended for notable
fooling; and was indeed the best _extemporary foole_ of them all."
Weldon's "Court of James" is a scandalous chronicle of the times.

His dispositions were, however, generally grave and studious. He seems
to have possessed a real love of letters, but attended with that
mediocrity of talent which in a private person had never raised him into
notice. "While there was a chance," writes the author of the Catalogue
of Noble Authors, "that the dyer's son, Vorstius, might be
divinity-professor at Leyden, instead of being burnt, as his majesty
hinted _to the Christian prudence_ of the Dutch that he deserved to be,
our ambassadors could not receive instructions, and consequently could
not treat on any other business. The king, who did not resent the
massacre at Amboyna, was on the point of breaking with the States for
supporting a man who professed the heresies of Enjedius, Ostodorus, &c.,
points of extreme consequence to Great Britain! Sir Dudley Carleton was
forced to threaten the Dutch, not only with the hatred of King James,
but also with his pen."

This royal pedant is forcibly characterised by the following
observations of the same writer:--

"Among his majesty's works is a small collection of poetry. Like several
of his subjects, our royal author has condescended to apologise for its
imperfections, as having been written in his youth, and his maturer age
being otherwise occupied. So that (to employ his own language) 'when his
ingyne and age could, his affaires and fascherie would not permit him to
correct them, scarslie but at stolen moments, he having the leisure to
blenk upon any paper.' When James sent a present of his harangues,
turned into Latin, to the Protestant princes in Europe, it is not
unentertaining to observe in their answers of compliments and thanks,
how each endeavoured to insinuate that he had read them, without
positively asserting it! Buchanan, when asked how he c