the last year of James's life, and may here find a place.

"I will.... write you news from the court at Rufford, where the loss of a stag, and the hounds hunting foxes instead of deer, put the king your master into a marvellous chafe, accompanied with those ordinary symptoms better known to you courtiers, I conceive, than to us country swains; in the height whereof comes a clown galloping in, and staring full in his face; ''Sblood,' quoth he, am I come forty miles to see a fellow?' and presently in a great rage turns about his horse, and away he goes faster than he came. The address whereof caused his majesty and all the company to burst out into a vehement laughter; and so the fume, for the time, was happily dispersed."

Another story, for which we are indebted to Wilson, is equally illustrative of the faults and excellencies of the monarch's disposition. In the midst of the negotiations for the Spanish match, the king, who was at Theobalds, was much discomposed by missing some important papers which he had received respecting it. On recollection, he was persuaded that he had intrusted them to his old servant Gib, a Scotchman and gentleman of the bedchamber. Gib, on being called, declared, humbly but firmly, that no such papers had ever been given to his care; on which the king, transported with rage, after much reviling, kicked him as he kneeled before him.

a Earl of Strafford's Letters and Dispatches, vol. i. p. 23. "Sir,"

VOL. II.

2 D

"Sir," exclaimed Gib, instantly rising, "I have served you from my youth, and you never found me unfaithful; I have not deserved this from you, nor can I live longer with you under this disgrace: Fare ye well, sir, I will never see your face more:" And he instantly took horse for London. No sooner was the circumstance known in the palace, than the papers were brought to the king by Endymion Porter, to whom he had given them. He asked for Gib, and being told that he was gone, ordered them to post after him and bring him back; vowing that he would neither eat, drink nor sleep till he saw him. And when he at length beheld him entering his chamber, he kneeled down and very earnestly begged his pardon; nor would he rise from this humble posture till he had in a manner compelled the confused and astonished Gib to pronounce the words of absolution".

King James was interred with great solemnity in Westminster Abbey, and the funeral sermon was preached by his favorite divine and politician Williams, in a style so congenial in every respect to the tastes and sentiments of the deceased monarch, that the audience might be tempted to regret that he could not enjoy the satisfaction of hearing it. Some passages appear worthy of being transcribed for the amusement and information, if not the admiration, of the modern reader. And Solomon slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David his

a History of Great Britain, p. 219.

father,

father, and his son Rehoboam reigned in his stead. It is not I, but this woful accident, that chooseth this text....No book will serve this turn but the book of kings, no king but one of the best kings, but one that reigned over all Israel, which must be either Saul, as yet good, or David, or Solomon; no king of all Israel but one of the wisest kings, which cannot be Saul, but either David or Solomon; none of the wisest kings neither unless he be a king of peace, which cannot be David, a man of war, but only Solomon; no king of peace neither, the more is our grief, alive and in his throne; and therefore it must of necessity be the funerals and obits of king Solomon." After this exordium follows an elaborate commentary on the life, actions and writings of Solomon, respecting whose choice of the gift of wisdom, it is gravely observed, that “although kings be anointed on the arms, the instruments of action, yet are they crowned only on the head, the seat of wisdom. Whether," proceeds the erudite divine, "this wisdom of Solomon's was universal, and embraced all sciences, as Pineda, or a prudence reaching to the practique only..... also whether Solomon did surmount, as Tostatus, or fall short of Adam in the pitch of his wisdom, as Gregory de Valentia thinks, are such doughty frays as I have no leisure to part at this time."

A parallel is drawn between the two kings in these terms: "Solomon is said to be the only son of his mother; so was king James. Solomon was of complexion white and ruddy; so was king James. So

lomon was an infant king; so was king James a king at the age of thirteen months. Solomon began his reign in the life of his predecessor; so, by the force and compulsion of that state, did our late sovereign king James. Solomon was twice crowned and anointed a king; so was king James. Solomon's minority was rough through the quarrels of the former sovereign; so was that of king James. Solomon was learned above all the princes of the east; so was king James above all princes in the universal world. Solomon was a writer in prose and verse; so, in a very pure and exquisite fashion, was our sweet sovereign king James. Solomon was the greatest patron we ever read of to church and churchmen; and yet no greater, let the house of Aaron now confess, than king James. Solomon was honored with ambassadors from all the kings of earth; and so you know was king James. Solomon was a main improver of his home commodities, as you may see in his trading with Hiram; and God knows, it was the daily study of king James. Solomon was a great improver of shipping and navigation; a most proper attribute to king James. Solomon beautified very much his imperial city with buildings and waterworks; so did king James. Every man lived at peace under his vine and his figtree in the days of king Solomon; and so they did in the blessed days of king James. And yet, towards the end, king Solomon had secret enemies ....and prepared for a war upon his going to the grave; so had and so did king James. Lastly, be

fore

fore any hostile act we read of in the history, king Solomon died in peace, when he had lived about sixty years, as Lyra and Tostatus were of opinion. And so you know did king James.”

The latter part of this extraordinary discourse, where the bishop drops at length the absurd task of comparing point by point "the two Solomons," is less unworthy of the reputation of Williams as a statesman and a man of sense; but nothing can be more scandalous than the spirit in which the following eulogy on the king's justice is conceived: "If we look at home in his own dominions, never were the benches so gravely furnished, never the courts so willingly frequented, never rich and poor so equally righted, never the balance so evenly poized as in the reign of our late sovereign; I could tell you that that will never be believed in later times, of a lord (lord Sanquar) that died for a vile varlet, of a peer condemned for a sorry gentleman; nay, of a dear son (the palatine) left unrelieved for a time against a stranger for fear of swerving the breadth of a hair from the line of justice.'

,,

The king's zeal for religion, and more particularly for episcopacy, receives the warmest commendations from the bishop, who concludes this head of his panegyric with the following statements: "He was as great a patron of the maintenance of the church as ever I read of in any history. For, beside his refusal of sede vacantes and that law he enacted at his first entrance for the preservation of the revenue of our churches in England, he might well say with