nsistent fabric, whose jarring and discordant parts
must soon destroy each other, and from the dissolution of the old, beget
some new form of civil government, more uniform and consistent.

* See note AAA, at the end of the volume.

** Kennet, p. 696.

In the public and avowed conduct of the king and the house of commons,
throughout this whole reign, there appears sufficient cause of quarrel
and mutual disgust; yet are we not to imagine that this was the sole
foundation of that jealousy which prevailed between them. During debates
in the house, it often happened that a particular member, more ardent
and zealous than the rest, would display the highest sentiments of
liberty, which the commons contented themselves to hear with silence
and seeming approbation; and the king, informed of these harangues,
concluded the whole house to be infected with the same principles, and
to be engaged in a combination against his prerogative. The king, on
the other hand, though he valued himself extremely on his kingcraft,
and perhaps was not altogether incapable of dissimulation, seems to have
been very little endowed with the gift of secrecy; but openly at his
table, in all companies, inculcated those monarchical tenets which he
had so strongly imbibed. Before a numerous audience, he had expressed
himself with great disparagement of the common law of England, and had
given the preference, in the strongest terms, to the civil law: and for
this indiscretion he found himself obliged to apologize, in a speech to
the former parliament.[*] As a specimen of his usual liberty of talk,
we may mention a story, though it passed some time after, which we
meet with in the life of Waller, and which that poet used frequently to
repeat. When Waller was young, he had the curiosity to go to court; and
he stood in the circle, and saw James dine; where, among other company,
there sat at table two bishops, Neile and Andrews. The king proposed
aloud this question, Whether he might not take his subjects' money, when
he needed it, without all this formality of parliament? Neile replied,
"God forbid you should not: for you are the breath of our nostrils."
Andrews declined answering, and said he was not skilled in parliamentary
cases: but upon the king's urging him, and saying he would admit of no
evasion, the bishop replied pleasantly, "Why, then, I think your majesty
may lawfully take my brother Neile's money; for he offers it."[**]

{1615.} The f