for liberal principles of government: yet these were for a long while little more than flashes in the dark, diamonds engendered in the depths of the mine, glow-worms glimmering in the libraries of the contemplative and the curious. Stern oppression it was that roused the country at last: when men, like Eliot, were beginning to learn that lesson, which Bishop Burnet says, the father of his own patron was taught in a prison,-that 'allegiance and protection were mutual obligations, and that therefore the one went for the other. He thought the law was the measure of 'both, and that when a legal protection was denied to one that 'paid a legal allegiance, the subject had a right to defend himHow sublime and simple is this straightforward common sense, enabling an honest man to walk through the political firmament, even when the sun of liberty was absent, like the moon in the glory of her brightness. Elizabeth had been a loving mother to her poor commons, after the fashion of an ancient schoolmistress, who could speak in the parish about nothing but her affection to two score wretched children, whom she whipped every Innocents' day, for the benefit of their souls and bodies. If ever the flame of freedom flitted about her precincts, it allured its followers to destruction. Her palace was that of an enchantress, surrounded with marshes and quagmires, and guarded by courtiers and lawyers, hungry as wolves, irresistible as lions, and artful as hyænas. Halls of justice, as they were most treacherously denominated, were scarcely better, in regard to cases of treason, than caverns of murderers. With inquisitors for judges, the crown for a prosecutor, entrenched in as many privileges as the queen wore ruffles, and with a phantasm of antiquated righteousness in some passive pusillanimous jury, every culprit was a doomed victim, tortured with the forms of a trial, like a mouse under the claws of its tormentor. When at length the king of terrors was beckoning to her own awful account the persecutrix of the Puritans, she vowed in solemn words that no 'rascal' should succeed her; and folding her fingers into the shape of a diadem, made signs which were understood, or at least were interpreted, to mark out James of Scotland as the prince to sit upon her throne, for the weal or woe of no less than three mighty kingdoms.

Accordingly he came, 'to give unto all that were well-affected exceeding cause of comfort;' as our venerable translators of the Scriptures have with slender regard for truth declared. He was indeed a nondescript amongst sovereigns, of a middle stature,' says Balfour, more corpulent through his clothes than in his 'body, yet fat enough; his garments being ever made large and easy, the doublets quilted to be proof against a stiletto, his breeches also having great plaits full stuffed. He was naturally ' of a very timorous disposition; his eye large and always rolling

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'after any stranger, that came into his presence, insomuch that many for shame have left the room, as being out of countenance. 'His beard was very thin; his tongue too large for his mouth, 'which made him speak very thickly, and drink very uncomely, 'as if eating his drink, that would come out again into the cup, 'from each side of his mouth. His skin was as soft as taffety or 'sarsnet; which felt so, because he never washed his hands; only 'rubbing his fingers at their tips slightly with the wet end of a napkin. His legs were very weak, having had as was thought some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born.' Wilson mentions his limping, wheedling, awkward gait, causing him to be constantly leaning on other people's shoulders, and with a lolling walk, which was sure to be circular. Francis Osborne says, I shall leave him dressed for posterity, in the colour 'I saw him in, the next progress after his inauguration; which was as green as the grass he trod on; with a feather in his cap, 'and a horn instead of a sword by his side.' Such was the Lord's Anointed, who had pretended to govern these reaims for twenty years, when Sir John Eliot first appeared in parliament. He fancied himself the Solomon of his day, being often styled so, by the bishops who called themselves the breath of his nostrils: and indeed Henry the Great of Navarre wittily admitted, that he might perchance have been Solomon the son of David Rizzio, the celebrated paramour of his infamous mother! England must have smitten her thigh for very shame at the sight of her worthless monarch, proud without courage,-learned without knowledge,-profuse without liberality, and parsimonious without economy. The common people formed a more honest estimate of him, than the prelates and parasites, who whilst worshipping the royal pedant, contrived to plunder most effectually the coffers of his treasury. Towns and villages could have resounded with the distich of an old song, which we have met with somewhere,

Under good King Elizabeth England was seen

As great as now little through Jemmy our queen !'

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With no personal qualities to command respect, he nevertheless proclaimed himself a lieutenant and vicegerent of God, bearing about him sundry sparkles of divinity.' In utter ignorance of the nature of society, nothing could shake his vain conceit of the awe to be inspired by his regal wisdom. He honestly believed, that he possessed in his own proper person, and was bound to transmit unimpaired to his descendants an authority absolute, and above all law; this last being a thing to which,' in his own phraseology, although a good king will frame his actions, yet he is not bound thereunto, but of his own free-will, and for example

'giving to his subjects.' There was at least one sense in which he answered to the father of Rehoboam, if not to the son of David: for he not merely chastised his people with whips,' but was preparing for them a hopeful successor, who would visit them with scorpions !'

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Meanwhile the profligacy of public morals walked hand in hand with the growth of arbitrary and hierarchical power. The court presented scenes of riot and debauchery. Not only were ladies notable for unchastity, but for downright drunkenness also. As might have been expected, the metropolis caught the tone, and spread the foul infection amongst every class. Real religious feeling, wherever it might happen to exist, was unassociated with the recognition of the rights of conscience upon either side; so that when brought into the arena of general affairs, bigotry exasperated discontent, and looked abroad as well as at home, for fuel to feed the fire. Nor was there any lack of this material; since James had lowered the dignity of his kingdoms quite as much on the continent of Europe, as he had lost the affection or respect of his subjects. His son-in-law, the unfortunate Elector Palatine, had suffered a disastrous defeat in Germany: and to have then boldly sprang forward as his protector and assistant, as the real defender of the Protestant faith in Christendom,-and as the assertor of civil and religious liberty, amidst the conflagration of the Thirty Years War, would have rendered him at once popular in Great Britain, and powerful as to his foreign policy. To draw the weak monarch from a course not less obvious than honourable, Spain had craftily entangled him with the bait of an Infanta for the Prince of Wales: and these islands had the mortification to witness their brother Protestants in the empire hunted down by tyrants,-the evangelical league discomfited by the Roman Catholic union,-themselves made parties to the wrong they abhorred, and rendered enemies to that holy cause of freedom and conscience, on which at home, they had staked 'their all.' Discontent rose to a frightful pitch. The person of the king was even threatened. Ridicule before neighbouring nations cast bitter scorn upon the court of London, and its cowardly sovereign. In Flanders, they acted comedies upon the stage, in which messengers bring news, that England was ready to send one hundred thousand ambassadors to the assistance of the palatinate. At Brussels, the mighty Scot was caricatured as wearing a scabbard without a sword; or in another place, with a sword that nobody could draw, although numbers pulled at it. His pockets were sometimes represented as hanging out penniless, which was true enough: or his purse, perfectly empty, was seen turned upside down. At Antwerp, the Queen of Bohemia was shown like a poor Irish mantler, with her hair hanging about her ears, and a baby on her back, while her royal imbecile sire

tottered after her, carrying a cradle! Hatred ever treads on the heels of contempt. Insurrection awoke, and turned herself upon her iron bed, just as a fresh intrigue favoured for an instant the popular party. James had waxed pale at the rising storm, and kissed his dog Steenie, that is to say, the Duke of Buckingham, several times with tears in his eyes, inquiring what was to be done? Resist and trample upon the vile people,' answered the minion. His foolish master did so for months; during which interval, jealousy of Lord Bristol at Madrid had produced the journey of Buckingham and Charles thither. The Spaniards refused to tolerate the favorite: and so that favorite returned in dudgeon. Negociations for the Spanish match were broken off. The duke fanned his cheeks with an unaccustomed gale of popularity. He threw himself amongst the patriots; made his sovereign unsay all that he had ever said, and undo all that he had ever done; and hostilities were declared against Spain !

The parliament assembled, with expectations never before entertained. The dissolution of the Spanish treaty was justly considered a very great national deliverance; and the favorite of James, who had disrobed him of his inglorious mantle of peace, was now the favorite of the nation. At this extraordinary juncture, Eliot took his seat in the House of Commons, on the 12th of February, 1623.'-p. 17.

He at once distinguished himself, and was received inter primores, amongst the leaders of the country party. The earliest day of the real session did not occur until the last day but one of the month. His voice was heard, before the sun went down, on behalf of the ancient privileges of the nation. He even pushed aside the engrossing question of the war; and with considerable reason. He foresaw that a contest, far more important to his country, could not be much longer delayed; and whilst others had their attention absorbed in the palatinate, he was buckling on his armour, and winding up his courage, to spend and be spent on behalf of that beloved liberty, which is the choicest earthly blessing to an enlightened patriot. The preliminary streaks were then illuminating the horizon of that day of account, to be ushered in at no distant period, with the horrors of civil war, and leading to the catastrophe at Whitehall. Writs of habeas corpus, although nominally always matters of right, at least after the field of Runnymede, proved barriers weaker than cobwebs, against illegal commitments and arbitrary detentions. Proclamations unwarranted by the constitution, restrictions on printing and the diffusion of free inquiry, delays in the administration of ordinary justice and equity so called, disgraced the bench, demoralized the bar, and disheartened suitors. Bribery, too, was the porter at the door of Themis, extending ever and

anon, an open, itching palm. Sometimes on very slight pretences, a provost marshal was set, like king Stork, over a district, where he loyally kept the peace by feeding the gallows, to weed out troublesome spirits, or suppress a reputed rebellion. Monopolies were suffered to impair, if they could not extinguish commerce; while forced loans, in relieving wealthy but unwilling citizens, from their golden plethora, superadded the prospect of an imprisonment in the Fleet, with a continuance of the punishment, apportioned to the degree of the contumacy. Nor did Sir John Eliot confine his remonstrances to domestic grievances, although he had awarded them a priority. He spoke, within eight and forty hours afterwards, upon the Spanish treaties, in the highest strain of popular feeling. He recommended the equipment of a fleet, and an abolition of all vacillating_negociations. Together with Philips, Selden, Coke, Rudyard, Savile, and Stroude, he elicited at a conference with the House of Lords, an assurance from the Treasurer, that James was resolved to 'call parliaments often, and make good laws.' If the king had merely thrown out this promise, as a honied cake to lull the patriots into inaction, he quickly discovered his failure. The knight of Cornwall never manifested any want of proper respect to the crown, or any forgetfulness of his duties towards the people. He took a prominent part, for so young a senator, in all grand questions, as well as in many private bills of no inconsiderable importance. He lent his aid to the best legal reforms; endeavoured to place grants of public lands upon a better footing than they had been before; and served on special committees for looking after the privileges claimed by the two universities. These institutions then, as recently, were described as the eyes of the land; and such perhaps in some respects they were and are; although it must in common candour be admitted, that they squint most horribly at the world, the flesh, and the devil. The business of Wadham and Magdalen colleges occupied him particularly. It is true, that he annoyed the court by reminding the house, of 'those stinging petitions not to be forgotten against Popish recusants; and, whilst we allow that religious toleration, not to say liberty, was scarcely understood on either side, yet it must always be remembered, that in the conduct of the king towards Catholics, was involved the very essence of that overbearing prerogative, which nobles and prelates were trying to sharpen, and the patriots to wrench from his grasp. It is also a relief to mention, that even here, his humanity often smoothed down the asperity of religious prejudice. In fact his patriotism was a torrent gushing from a consecrated heart,-full of love to God, and equally so of love to man. Influences peculiar to time, and those connected with eternity, moved forward together and yet so unmin