some say it shall, but I believe them not.”  It never was; for even this parliament broke up with the cries of “some tribunitial orators,” as James designated the pure and the impure democratic spirits.  Smollett remarks in his margin, that the king endeavoured to cajole the Commons.  Had he known of the royal tears, he had still heightened the phrase.  Hard fate of kings!  Should ever their tears attest the warmth of honest feelings, they must be thrown out of the pale of humanity:  for Francis Osborne, that cynical republican, declares, that “there are as few abominable princes as tolerable kings; because princes must court the public favour before they attain supreme power, and then change their nature!” Such is the egotism of republicanism!

[Footnote A:  “Rushworth,” vol. i. p. 54.]

[Footnote B:  From a MS. of the times.]

* * * * *

SCANDALOUS CHRONICLES.

The character of James I. has always been taken from certain scandalous chronicles, whose origin requires detection.  It is this mud which has darkened and disturbed the clear stream of history.  The reigns of Elizabeth and James teemed with libels in church and state from opposite parties:  the idleness of the pacific court of James I. hatched a viperous brood of a less hardy, but perhaps of a more malignant nature, than the Martin Mar-prelates of the preceding reign.  Those boldly at once wrote treason, and, in some respects, honestly dared the rope which could only silence Penry and his party; but these only reached to scandalum magnatum, and the puny wretches could only have crept into a pillory.  In the times of the Commonwealth, when all things were agreeable which vilified our kings, these secret histories were dragged from their lurking holes.  The writers are meagre Suetoniuses and Procopiuses; a set of self-elected spies in the court; gossipers, lounging in the same circle; eaves-droppers; pryers into corners; buzzers of reports; and punctual scribes of what the French (so skilful in the profession) technically term les on dit; that is, things that might never have happened, although they are recorded:  registered for posterity in many a scandalous chronicle, they have been mistaken for histories; and include so many truths and falsehoods, that it becomes unsafe for the historian either to credit or to disbelieve them.[A]

[Footnote A:  Most of these works were meanly printed, and were usually found in a state of filth and rags, and would have perished in their own merited neglect, had they not been recently splendidly reprinted by Sir Walter Scott.  Thus the garbage has been cleanly laid on a fashionable epergne, and found quite to the taste of certain lovers of authentic history!  Sir Anthony Weldon, clerk of the king’s kitchen, in his “Court of King James” has been reproached for gaining much of his scandalous chronicle from the purlieus of the court.  For this work