sicians in the morning he was out of
comfort, and by the prince's leave told him, kneeling by his pallet,
that his days to come would be but few in this world. '_I am
satisfied_,' said the king; 'but pray you assist me to make me ready for
the next world, to go away hence for Christ, whose mercies I call for,
and hope to find.'

"From that time the keeper never left him, or put off his clothes to go
to bed. The king took the communion, and professed he died in the bosom
of the Church of England, whose doctrine he had defended with his pen,
being persuaded it was according to the mind of Christ, as he should
shortly answer it before him.

"He stayed in the chamber to take notice of everything the king said,
and to repulse those who crept much about the chamber door, and into the
chamber; they were for the most addicted to the Church of Rome. Being
rid of them, he continued in prayer, while the king lingered on, and at
last _shut his eyes with his own hands_."

Thus, in the full power of his faculties, a timorous prince

encountered the horrors of dissolution. _Religion_ rendered cheerful the
abrupt night of futurity; and what can _philosophy_ do more, or rather,
can philosophy do as much?

I proposed to have examined with some care the works of James I.; but
that uninviting task has been now postponed till it is too late. As a
writer, his works may not be valuable, and are infected with the
pedantry and the superstition of the age; yet I _suspect_ that James was
not that degraded and feeble character in which he ranks by the
contagious voice of criticism. He has had more critics than readers.
After a great number of acute observations and witty allusions, made
extempore, which we find continually recorded of him by contemporary
writers, and some not friendly to him, I conclude that he possessed a
great promptness of wit, and much solid judgment and acute ingenuity. It
requires only a little labour to prove this.

That labour I have since zealously performed. This article, composed
_more than thirty years_ ago, displays the effects of first impressions
and popular clamours. About _ten_ years I _suspected_ that his character
was grossly injured, and _lately_ I found how it has suffered from a
variety of causes. That monarch preserved for us a peace of more than
twenty years; and his talents were of a higher order than the calumnies
of the party who have remorselessly degraded him have allowed a common
inquirer to di