The mind of James I. had at all times the fulness of a student's, delighting in the facility and copiousness of composition. The king wrote in one week one hundred folio pages of a monitory address to the European sovereigns; and, in as short a time, his apology, sent to the pope and cardinals. These he delivered to the bishops, merely as notes for their use; but they were declared to form of themselves a complete answer. "Qua felicitate they were done, let others judge; but Qua celeritate, I can tell," says the courtly bishop who collected the king's works, and who is here quoted, not for the compliment he would infer, but for the fact he states. The week's labour of his majesty provoked from Cardinal Perron about one thousand pages in folio, and replies and rejoinders from the learned in Europe.[A]
[Footnote A: Mr. Lodge, in his "Illustrations of British History," praises and abuses James I. for the very same treatises. Mr. Lodge, dropping the sober character of the antiquary for the smarter one of the critic, tells us, "James had the good fortune to gain the two points he principally aimed at in the publication of these dull treatises—the reputation of an acute disputant, and the honour of having Cardinal Bellarmin for an antagonist." Did Mr. Lodge ever read these "dull treatises?" I declare I never have; but I believe these treatises are not dull, from the inference he draws from them: for how any writer can gain the reputation of "an acute disputant" by writing "dull treatises," Mr. Lodge only can explain. It is in this manner, and by unphilosophical critics, that the literary reputation of James has been flourished down by modern pens. It was sure game to attack James I.!]
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HIS ELOQUENCE.
The eloquence of James is another feature in the literary character of this monarch. Amid the sycophancy of the court of a learned sovereign some truths will manifest themselves. Bishop Williams, in his funeral eulogy of James I., has praised with warmth the eloquence of the departed monarch, whom he intimately knew; and this was an acquisition of James's, so manifest to all, that the bishop made eloquence essential to the dignity of a monarch; observing, that "it was the want of it that made Moses, in a manner, refuse all government, though offered by God."[A] He would not have hazarded so peculiar an eulogium, had not the monarch been distinguished by that talent.
[Footnote A: This funeral sermon, by laying such a stress on the eloquence of James I., it is said, occasioned the disgrace of the zealous bishop; perhaps, also, by the arts of the new courtiers practising on the feelings of the young monarch. It appears that Charles betrayed frequent symptoms of impatience.
This allusion to the stammering of Moses was most unlucky; for Charles had this defect in his delivery, which he laboured all his life to correct. In the first speech from the throne, he alludes to it: "Now, because I am unfit for much speaking, I mean to bring up the fashion of my predecessors, to have my lord-keeper speak for me in most things." And he closed a speech to the Scottish parliament by saying, that "he does not offer to endear himself by words, which, indeed is not my way." This, however, proved to be one of those little circumstances which produce a more important result than is suspected. By this substitution of a lord-keeper instead of the sovereign, he failed in exciting the personal affections of his parliament. Even the most gracious speech from the lips of a lord-keeper is but formally delivered, and coldly received; and Charles had not yet learned that there are no deputies for our feelings.]
Hume first observed of James I., that "the speaker of the House of Commons is usually an eminent man; yet the harangue of his Majesty will always be found much superior to that of the speaker in every parliament during this reign." His numerous proclamations are evidently wrought by his own hand, and display the pristine vigour of the state of our age of genius. That the state-papers were usually composed by himself, a passage in the Life of the Lord-keeper Williams testifies; and when Sir Edward Conway, who had been bred a soldier, and was even illiterate, became a viscount, and a royal secretary, by the appointment of Buckingham, the king, who in fact wanted no secretary, would often be merry over his imperfect scrawls in writing, and his hacking of sentences in reading, often breaking out in laughter, exclaiming, "Stenny has provided me with a secretary who can neither write nor read, and a groom of my bedchamber who cannot truss my points,"—this latter person having but one hand! It is evident, since Lord Conway, the most inefficient secretary ever king had—and I have myself seen his scrawls—remained many years in office, that James I. required no secretary, and transacted his affairs with his own mind and hand. These habits of business and of study prove that James indulged much less those of indolence, for which he is so gratuitously accused.
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