sure
me and my council. Therefore I reiterate my former speech: Le roi
s'avisera. Stay, I pray, for one seven years, before you demand; and
then, if you find me grow pursy and fat, I may perchance hearken unto
you. For that government will keep me in breath, and give me work
enough."[***] Such were the political considerations which determined
the king in his choice among religious parties.

* Fuller's Ecclesiastical History.

** Kennet, p. 665.

*** Fuller's Ecclesiastical History.

The next assembly in which James displayed his learning and eloquence,
was one that showed more spirit of liberty than appeared among his
bishops and theologians The parliament was now ready to assemble;
being so long delayed on account of the plague, which had broken out in
London, and raged to such a degree, that above thirty thousand persons
are computed to have died of it in a year; though the city contained at
that time little more than one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants.

The speech which the king made on opening the parliament, fully displays
his character, and proves him to have possessed more knowledge
and better parts, than prudence, or any just sense of decorum and
propriety.[*] Though few productions of the age surpass this performance
either in style or matter, it wants that majestic brevity and reserve
which become a king in his addresses to the great council of the nation.
It contains, however, a remarkable stroke of candor, where he confesses
his too great facility in yielding to the solicitations of suitors:[**]
a fault which he promises to correct, but which adhered to him, and
distressed him, during the whole course of his reign.

The first business in which the commons were engaged was of the utmost
importance to the preservation of their privileges; and neither temper
nor resolution was wanting in their conduct of it.

In the former periods of the English government, the house of commons
was of so small weight in the balance of the constitution, that little
attention had been given either by the crown, the people, or the house
itself, to the choice and continuance of the members. It had been usual,
after parliaments were prolonged beyond one session, for the chancellor
to exert a discretionary authority of issuing new writs to supply the
place of any members whom he judged incapable of attending, either on
account of their employment, their sickness, or other impediment. This
practice gave