ocation, has risen to a great pitch; and it had perhaps been
more prudent in James, by a little dissimulation, to have conformed
himself to it. His theological learning, confirmed by disputation, has
happily fixed his judgment in the Protestant faith; yet was his heart a
little biased by the allurements of Rome; and he had been well pleased,
if the making of some advances could have effected a union with that
ancient mother church. He strove to abate the acrimony of his own
subjects against the religion of their fathers: he became himself
the object of their diffidence and aversion. Whatever measures he
embraced--in Scotland to introduce prelacy, in England to enforce
the authority of the established church, and support its rites and
ceremonies--were interpreted as so many steps towards Popery; and were
represented by the Puritans as symptoms of idolatry and superstition.
Ignorant of the consequences, or unwilling to sacrifice to politics his
inclination, which he called his conscience, he persevered in the same
measures, and gave trust and preferment, almost indifferently, to his
Catholic and Protestant subjects. And finding his person, as well as his
title, less obnoxious to the church of Rome, than those of Elizabeth, he
gradually abated the rigor of those laws which had been enacted against
that church, and which were so acceptable to his bigoted subjects. But
the effects of these dispositions on both sides became not very sensible
till towards the conclusion of his reign.

{1606.} At this time, James seems to have possessed the affections even
of his English subjects, and, in a tolerable degree, their esteem and
regard. Hitherto their complaints were chiefly levelled against his too
great constancy in his early friendships; a quality which, had it been
attended with more economy, the wise would have excused, and the
candid would even, perhaps, have applauded. His parts, which were not
despicable, and his learning, which was great, being highly extolled by
his courtiers and gownmen, and not yet tried in the management of any
delicate affairs, for which he was unfit, raised a high idea of him in
the world; nor was it always through flattery or insincerity that he
received the title of the second Solomon. A report, which was suddenly
spread about this time of his being assassinated, visibly struck a great
consternation into all orders of men.[*] The commons also abated, this
session, somewhat of their excessive frugali