Literary Character of Men of Genius Part 32

"Here lies his grace, in cold earth clad, Who died with want of what he had."

We find a characteristic trait of this Bishop of London in this conference. When Ellesmere, Lord Chancellor, observed that "livings rather want learned men, than learned men livings, many in the universities pining for want of places. I wish therefore some may have _single coats_ (one living) before others have _doublets_ (pluralities), and this method I have observed in bestowing the king's benefices." Bancroft replied, "I commend your memorable _care_ that way; but a _doublet_ is necessary in cold weather." Thus an avaricious bishop could turn off, with a miserable jest, the open avowal of his love of pluralities. Another, Neile, Bishop of Lincoln, when any one preached who was remarkable for his piety, desirous of withdrawing the king's attention from truths he did not wish to have his majesty reminded of, would in the sermon-time entertain the king with a merry tale, which the king would laugh at, and tell those near him, that he could not hear the preacher for the old--bishop; prefixing an epithet explicit of the character of these merry tales.

Kennet has preserved for us the "rank relation," as he calls it; not, he adds, but "we have had divers hammerings and conflicts within us to leave it out."--Kennet's "History of England," ii. 729.]

These studies of polemical divinity, like those of the ancient scholastics, were not to be obtained without a robust intellectual exercise. James instructed his son Charles,[A] who excelled in them; and to those studies Whitelocke attributes that apt.i.tude of Charles I. which made him so skilful a summer-up of arguments, and endowed him with so clear a perception in giving his decisions.

[Footnote A: That the clergy were somewhat jealous of their sovereign's interference in these matters may be traced. When James charged the chaplains, who were to wait on the prince in Spain, to decline, as far as possible, religious disputes, he added, that "should any happen, my son is able to moderate in them." The king, observing one of the divines smile, grew warm, vehemently affirming, "I tell ye, Charles shall manage a point in controversy with the best studied divine of ye all." What the king said was afterwards confirmed on an extraordinary occasion, in the conference Charles I. held with Alexander Henderson, the old champion of the kirk. Deprived of books, which might furnish the sword and pistol of controversy, and without a chaplain to stand by him as a second, Charles I. fought the theological duel; and the old man, cast down, retired with such a sense of the learning and honour of the king, in maintaining the order of episcopacy in England, that his death, which soon followed, is attributed to the deep vexation of this discomfiture. The veteran, who had succeeded in subverting the hierarchy in Scotland, would not be apt to die of a fit of conversion; but vexation might be apoplectic in an old and st.u.r.dy disputant. The king's controversy was published; and nearly all the writers agree he carried the day. Yet some divines appear more jealous than grateful: Bishop Kennet, touched by the _esprit du corps_, honestly tells us, that "some thought the king had been better able to _protect_ the Church, if he had not _disputed_ for it." This discovers all the ardour possible for the _establishment_, and we are to infer that an English sovereign is only to _fight_ for his churchmen. But there is a n.o.bler office for a sovereign to perform in ecclesiastical history--to promote the learned and the excellent, and repress the dissolute and the intolerant.]

THE WORKS OF JAMES THE FIRST.

We now turn to the writings of James the First. He composed a treatise on demoniacs and witches; those dramatic personages in courts of law. James and his council never suspected that those ancient foes to mankind could be dismissed by a simple _Nolle prosequi_. "A Commentary on the Revelations," which was a favourite speculation then, and on which greater geniuses have written since his day. "A Counterblast to Tobacco!" the t.i.tle more ludicrous than the design.[A] His majesty terrified "the tobacconists," as the patriarchs of smoking-clubs were called, and who were selling their very lands and houses in an epidemical madness for "a stinking weed," by discovering that "they were making a sooty kitchen in their inward parts."[B] And the king gained a point with the great majority of his subjects, when he demonstrated to their satisfaction that the pope was antichrist. Ridiculous as these topics are to us, the works themselves were formed on what modern philosophers affect to term the principle of utility; a principle which, with them indeed, includes everything they approve of, and nothing they dislike.

[Footnote A: Not long before James composed his treatise on "Daemonologie,"

the learned Wierus had published an elaborate work on the subject.

"_De praestigiis Daemonum et incantationibus et Veneficiis_," &c., 1568.

He advanced one step in philosophy by discovering that many of the supposed cases of incantation originated in the imagination of these sorcerers--but he advanced no farther, for he acknowledges the real diabolical presence. The physician, who pretended to cure the disease, was himself irrecoverably infected. Yet even this single step of Wierus was strenuously resisted by the learned Bodin, who, in his amusing volume of "Demonomanie des Sorciers," 1593, refutes Wierus. These are the leading authors of the times; who were followed by a crowd. Thus James I. neither wanted authorities to quote nor great minds to sanction his "Daemonologie,"

first published in 1597. To the honour of England, a single individual, Reginald Scot, with a genius far advanced beyond his age, denied the very existence of those witches and demons in the curious volume of his "Discovery of Witchcraft," 1584. His books were burned! and the author was himself not quite out of danger; and Voetius, says Bayle, complains that when the work was translated into Dutch, it raised up a number of libertines who laughed at all the operations and the apparitions of devils. Casaubon and Glanvil, who wrote so much later, treat Scot with profound contempt, a.s.suring us his reasonings are childish, and his philosophy absurd! Such was the reward of a man of genius combating with popular prejudices! Even so late as 1687, these popular superst.i.tions were confirmed by the narrations and the philosophy of Glanvil, Dr. More, &c.

The subject enters into the "Commentaries on the Laws of England." An edict of Louis XIV, and a statute by George II, made an end of the whole _Diablerie_. Had James I. adopted the system of Reginald Scot, the king had probably been branded as an atheist king!]

[Footnote B: Harris, with systematic ingenuity against James I., after abusing this tract as a wretched performance, though himself probably had written a meaner one--quotes the curious information the king gives of the enormous abuse to which the practice of smoking was carried, expressing his astonishment at it. Yet, that James may not escape bitter censure, he abuses the king for levying a heavy tax on it to prevent this ruinous consumption, and his silly policy in discouraging such a branch of our revenues, and an article so valuable to our plantations, &c. As if James I. could possibly incur censure for the discoveries of two centuries after, of the nature of this plant! James saw great families ruined by the epidemic madness, and sacrificed the revenues which his crown might derive from it, to a.s.sist its suppression. This was patriotism in the monarch.]

It was a prompt honesty of intention to benefit his people, which seems to have been the urgent motive that induced this monarch to become an author, more than any literary ambition; for he writes on no prepared or permanent topic, and even published anonymously, and as he once wrote "post-haste,"

what he composed or designed for practical and immediate use; and even in that admirable treatise on the duties of a sovereign, which he addressed to Prince Henry, a great portion is directed to the exigencies of the times, the parties, and the circ.u.mstances of his own court. Of the works now more particularly noticed, their interest has ceased with the melancholy follies which at length have pa.s.sed away; although the philosophical inquirer will not choose to drop this chapter in the history of mankind. But one fact in favour of our royal author is testified by the honest Fuller and the cynical Osborne. On the king's arrival in England, having discovered the numerous impostures and illusions which he had often referred to as authorities, he grew suspicious of the whole system of "Daemonologie," and at length recanted it entirely. With the same conscientious zeal James had written the book, the king condemned it; and the sovereign separated himself from the author, in the cause of truth; but the clergy and the parliament persisted in making the imaginary crime felony by the statute, and it is only a recent act of parliament which has forbidden the appearance of the possessed and the spae-wife.

But this apology for having written these treatises need not rest on this fact, however honourably it appeals to our candour. Let us place it on higher ground, and tell those who asperse this monarch for his credulity and intellectual weakness, that they themselves, had they lived in the reign of James I., had probably written on the same topics, and felt as uneasy at the rumour of a witch being a resident in their neighbourhood!

POPULAR SUPERSt.i.tIONS OF THE AGE.

This and the succeeding age were the times of omens and meteors, prognostics and providences--of "day-fatality," or the superst.i.tion of fortunate and unfortunate days, and the combined powers of astrology and magic. It was only at the close of the century of James I. that Bayle wrote a treatise on comets, to prove that they had no influence in the cabinets of princes; this was, however, done with all the precaution imaginable. The greatest minds were then sinking under such popular superst.i.tions: and whoever has read much of the private history of this age will have smiled at their ludicrous terrors and bewildered reasonings. The most ordinary events were attributed to an interposition of Providence. In the unpublished memoirs of that learned antiquary, Sir Symouds D'Ewes, such frequently occur. When a comet appeared, and D'Ewes, for exercise at college, had been ringing the great bell, and entangled himself in the rope, which had nearly strangled him, he resolves not to ring while the comet is in the heavens. When a fire happened at the Six Clerks' Office, of whom his father was one, he inquires into the most prominent sins of the six clerks: these were the love of the world, and doing business on Sundays: and it seems they thought so themselves; for after the fire the office-door was fast closed on the Sabbath. When the Thames had an unusual ebb and flow, it was observed, that it had never happened in their recollection, but just before the rising of the Earl of Ess.e.x in Elizabeth's reign,--and Sir Symonds became uneasy at the political aspect of affairs.

All the historians of these times are very particular in marking the bearded beams of blazing stars; and the first public event that occurs is always connected with the radiant course. Arthur Wilson describes one which preceded the death of the simple queen of James I. It was generally imagined that "this great light in the heaven was sent as a flambeaux to her funeral;" but the historian discovers, while "this blaze was burning, the fire of war broke out in Bohemia." It was found difficult to decide between the two opinions; and Rushworth, who wrote long afterwards, carefully chronicles both.

The truth is, the greatest geniuses of the age of James I. were as deeply concerned in these investigations as his Majesty. Had the great Verulam emanc.i.p.ated himself from all the dreams of his age? He speaks indeed cautiously of witchcraft, but does not deny its occult agency; and of astrology he is rather for the improvement than the rejection. The bold spirit of Rawleigh contended with the superst.i.tions of the times; but how feeble is the contest where we fear to strike! Even Rawleigh is prodigal of his praise to James for the king's chapter on magic. The great mind of Rawleigh perceived how much men are formed and changed by _education;_ but, were this principle admitted to its extent, the _stars_ would lose their influence! In pleading for the free agency of man, he would escape from the pernicious tendency of predestination, or the astral influence, which yet he allows. To extricate himself from the dilemma, he invents an a.n.a.logical reasoning of a royal power of dispensing with the laws in extreme cases; so that, though he does not deny "the binding of the stars," he declares they are controllable by the will of the Creator. In this manner, fettered by prevalent opinions, he satisfies the superst.i.tions of an astrological age, and the penetration of his own genius. At a much later period Dr Henry More, a writer of genius, confirmed the ghost and demon creed, by a number of facts, as marvellously pleasant as any his own poetical fancy could have invented. Other great authors have not less distinguished themselves. When has there appeared a single genius who at once could free himself of the traditional prejudices of his contemporaries--nay, of his own party? Genius, in its advancement beyond the intelligence of its own age, is but progressive; it is fancifully said to soar, but it only climbs. Yet the minds of some authors of this age are often discovered to be superior to their work; because the mind is impelled by its own inherent powers, but the work usually originates in the age. James I, once acutely observed, how "the author may be wise, but the work foolish."

Thus minds of a higher rank than our royal author had not yet cleared themselves out of these clouds of popular prejudices. We now proceed to more decisive results of the superior capacity of this much ill-used monarch.

THE HABITS OF JAMES THE FIRST THOSE OF A MAN OF LETTERS.

The habits of life of this monarch were those of a man of letters. His first studies were soothed by none of their enticements. If James loved literature, it was for itself; for Buchanan did not tinge the rim of the vase with honey; and the bitterness was tasted not only in the draught, but also in the rod. In some princes, the harsh discipline James pa.s.sed through has raised a strong aversion against literature. The Dauphin, for whose use was formed the well-known edition of the cla.s.sics, looked on the volumes with no eye of love. To free himself of his tutor, Huet, he eagerly consented to an early marriage. "Now we shall see if Mr. Huet shall any more keep me to ancient geography!" exclaimed the Dauphin, rejoicing in the first act of despotism. This ingenuous sally, it is said, too deeply affected that learned man for many years afterwards. Huet's zealous gentleness (for how could Huet be too rigid?) wanted the art which Buchanan disdained to practise. But, in the case of the prince of Scotland, a const.i.tutional timidity combining with an ardour for study, and therefore a veneration for his tutor, produced a more remarkable effect. Such was the terror which the remembrance of this ill.u.s.trious but inexorable republican left on the imagination of his royal pupil, that even so late as when James was seated on the English throne, once the appearance of his frowning tutor in a dream greatly agitated the king, who in vain attempted to pacify him in this portentous vision. This extraordinary fact may be found in a ma.n.u.script letter of that day.[A]

[Footnote A: The learned Mede wrote the present letter soon after another, which had not been acknowledged, to his friend Sir M. Stuteville; and the writer is uneasy lest the political secrets of the day might bring the parties into trouble. It seems he was desirous that letter should be read and then burnt.

"_March 31, 1622._

"I hope my letter miscarried not; if it did I am in a sweet pickle. I desired to hear from you of the receipt and extinction of it. Though there is no danger in my letters whilst report is so rife, yet when it is forgotten they will not be so safe; but your danger is as great as mine--

"Mr. Downham was with we, now come from London. He told me that it was three years ago since those verses were delivered to the king in a dream, by his Master Buchanan, who seemed to _check him severely, as he used to do_; and his Majesty, in his dream, seemed desirous to pacify him, but he, _turning away with a frowning countenance_, would utter those verses, which his Majesty, perfectly remembering, repeated the next day, and many took notice of them. Now, by occasion of the late soreness in his arm, and the doubtfulness what it would prove; especially having, by mischance, fallen into the fire with that arm, the remembrance of the verses began to trouble him."

It appears that these verses were of a threatening nature, since, in a melancholy fit, they were recalled to recollection after an interval of three years; the verses are lost to us, with the letter which contained them.]

James, even by the confession of his bitter satirist, Francis...o...b..rne, "dedicated rainy weather to his standish, and fair to his hounds." His life had the uniformity of a student's; but the regulated life of a learned monarch must have weighed down the gay and dissipated with the deadliest monotony. Hence one of these courtiers declared that, if he were to awake after a sleep of seven years' continuance, he would undertake to enumerate the whole of his Majesty's occupations, and every dish that had been placed on the table during the interval. But this courtier was not aware that the monotony which the king occasioned him was not so much in the king himself as in his own volatile spirit.

The table of James I. was a trial of wits, says a more learned courtier, who often partook of these prolonged conversations: those genial and convivial conferences were the recreations of the king, and the means often of advancing those whose talents had then an opportunity of discovering themselves. A life so constant in its pursuits was to have been expected from the temper of him who, at the view of the Bodleian library, exclaimed, "Were I not a king, I would be an university man; and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, I would have no other prison than this library, and be _chained together_ with all these goodly authors."[A]

[Footnote A: In this well-known exclamation of James I., a witty allusion has been probably overlooked. The king had in his mind the then prevalent custom of securing books by fastening them to the shelves by _chains_ long enough to reach to the reading-desks under them.]

Study, indeed, became one of the businesses of life with our contemplative monarch; and so zealous was James to form his future successor, that he even seriously engaged in the education of both his sons. James I. offers the singular spectacle of a father who was at once a preceptor and a monarch: it was in this spirit the king composed his "Basilicon Doron; or, His Majesty's Instructions to his dearest Son Henry the Prince," a work of which something more than the intention is great; and he directed the studies of the unfortunate Charles. That both these princes were no common pupils may be fairly attributed to the king himself. Never did the character of a young prince shoot out with n.o.bler promises than Henry; an enthusiast for literature and arms, that prince early showed a great and commanding spirit. Charles was a man of fine taste: he had talents and virtues, errors and misfortunes; but he was not without a spirit equal to the days of his trial.

FACILITY AND COPIOUSNESS OF HIS COMPOSITION.

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 "Ill.u.s.trations 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 princ.i.p.ally 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.!]

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 G.o.d."[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 fas.h.i.+on 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 circ.u.mstances which produce a more important result than is suspected. By this subst.i.tution 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 pa.s.sage 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.

HIS WIT.

Amid all the ridicule and contempt in which the intellectual capacity of James I. is involved, this college-pedant, who is imagined to have given in to every species of false wit, and never to have reached beyond quibbles, puns, conceits, and quolibets,--was in truth a great wit; quick in retort, and happy in ill.u.s.tration; and often delivering opinions with a sententious force. More wit and wisdom from his lips have descended to us than from any other of our sovereigns. One of the malicious writers of his secret history, Sir Anthony Weldon, not only informs us that he was witty, but describes the manner: "He was very witty, and had as many witty jests as any man living: at which he would not smile himself, but deliver them in a grave and serious manner." Thus the king was not only witty, but a dextrous wit: nor is he one of those who are recorded as having only said one good thing in their lives; for his vein was not apt to dry.