A character must be short; and it must be entire, the complete expression of a clear judgement.  The perfect model is provided by Clarendon.  He has more than formal excellence.  ‘Motives’, said Johnson, ’are generally unknown.  We cannot trust to the characters we find in history, unless when they are drawn by those who knew the persons; as those, for instance, by Sallust and by Lord Clarendon.’[4]

[Footnote 1:  Letter to Pepys, January 20, 1703; Pepys’s Diary, ed.  Braybrooke, 1825, vol. ii, p. 290.]

[Footnote 2:  ‘Short Remarks on Bishop Burnet’s History,’ ad init.]

[Footnote 3:  History, preface]

[Footnote 4:  Boswell, 1769, ed.  G.B.  Hill, vol. ii, p. 79.]

* * * * *

Sooner or later every one who deals with the history or literature of the seventeenth century has to own his obligations to Professor C.H.  Firth.  My debt is not confined to his writings, references to which will be found continually in the notes.  At every stage of the preparation of this volume I have had the advantage of his most generous interest.  And with his name it is a pleasure to associate in one compendious acknowledgement the names of Dr. Henry Bradley and Mr. Percy Simpson.

Oxford,
September 16, 1918. 
D.N.S.

1.

JAMES I.

James VI of Scotland 1567.  James I 1603.

Born 1566.  Died 1625.

By ARTHUR WILSON.

He was born a King, and from that height, the less fitted to look into inferiour things; yet few escaped his knowledge, being, as it were, a Magazine to retain them.  His Stature was of the Middle Size; rather tall than low, well set and somewhat plump, of a ruddy Complexion, his hair of a light brown, in his full perfection, had at last a Tincture of white.  If he had any predominant Humor to Ballance his Choler, it was Sanguine, which made his Mirth Witty.  His Beard was scattering on the Chin, and very thin; and though his Clothes were seldome fashioned to the Vulgar garb, yet in the whole man he was not uncomely.  He was a King in understanding, and was content to have his Subjects ignorant in many things; As in curing the Kings Evil, which he knew a Device, to ingrandize the Vertue of Kings, when Miracles were in fashion; but he let the World believe it, though he smiled at it, in his own Reason, finding the strength of the Imagination a more powerfull Agent in the Cure, than the Plaisters his Chirurgions prescribed for the Sore.  It was a hard Question, whether his Wisedome, and knowledge, exceeded his Choler, and Fear; certainly the last couple drew him with most violence, because they were not acquisititious, but Naturall; If he had not had that Allay, his high touring, and mastering Reason, had been of a Rare, and sublimed Excellency; but these earthy Dregs kept it down, making his Passions extend him as farre as Prophaness, that I may not say Blasphemy, and Policy superintendent of all his Actions; which will not last long (like the Violence of that Humor) for it often makes those that know well, to do ill, and not be able to prevent it.