“Il y auroit un excellent livre a faire sur les INJUSTICES, les OUBLIS, et les CALOMNIES HISTORIQUES.”—­MADAME DE GENLIS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

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The present inquiry originates in an affair of literary conscience.  Many years ago I set off in the world with the popular notions of the character of James the First; but in the course of study, and with a more enlarged comprehension of the age, I was frequently struck by the contrast of his real with his apparent character; and I thought I had developed those hidden and involved causes which have so long influenced modern writers in ridiculing and vilifying this monarch.

This historical trifle is, therefore, neither a hasty decision, nor a designed inquiry; the results gradually arose through successive periods of time, and, were it worth the while, the history of my thoughts, in my own publications, might be arranged in a sort of chronological conviction.[A]

[Footnote A:  I have described the progress of my opinions in “Curiosities of Literature,” vol. i. p. 467, last edition.]

It would be a cowardly silence to shrink from encountering all that popular prejudice and party feeling may oppose; this were incompatible with that constant search after truth which we may at least expect from the retired student.

I had originally limited this inquiry to the literary character of the monarch; but there was a secret connexion between that and his political conduct; and that again led me to examine the manners and temper of the times, with the effects which a peace of more than twenty years operated on the nation.  I hope that the freshness of the materials, often drawn from contemporary writings which have never been published, may in some respect gratify curiosity.  Of the political character of James the First opposite tempers will form opposite opinions; the friends of peace and humanity will consider that the greatest happiness of the people is that of possessing a philosopher on the throne; let profounder inquirers hereafter discover why those princes are suspected of being but weak men, who are the true fathers of their people; let them too inform us, whether we are to ascribe to James the First, as well as to Marcus Antoninus, the disorders of their reign, or place them to the ingratitude and wantonness of mankind.

AN INQUIRY

INTO THE

LITERARY AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF
JAMES THE FIRST;

INCLUDING A SKETCH OF HIS AGE.

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If sometimes the learned entertain false opinions and traditionary prejudices, as well as the people, they however preserve among themselves a paramount love of truth, and the means to remove errors, which have escaped their scrutiny.  The occasion of such errors may be complicate, but, usually, it is the arts and passions of the few which find an indolent acquiescence among the many, and firm adherents among those who so eagerly consent to what they do not dislike to hear.