—­in this plenty

And fat of peace, our young men ne’er were train’d
To martial discipline, and our ships unrigg’d
Rot in the harbour.

MASSINGER.

[Footnote A:  “Five Years of King James.”  Harl.  Misc.]

[Footnote B:  A. Wilson’s “Hist. of James I.” p. 28.]

[Footnote C:  That ancient oppressive institution of the Court of Wards then existed; and Massinger, the great painter of our domestic manners in this reign, has made it the subject of one of his interesting dramas.]

The idleness which rusts quiet minds effervesces in fiery spirits pent up together; and the loiterers in the environs of a court, surfeiting with peace, were quick at quarrel.  It is remarkable, that in the pacific reign of James I. never was so much blood shed in brawls, nor duels so tremendously barbarous.  Hume observed this circumstance, and attributes it to “the turn that the romantic chivalry, for which the nation was formerly so renowned, had lately taken.”  An inference probably drawn from the extraordinary duel between Sir Edward Sackville, afterwards Lord Dorset, and the Lord Bruce.[A] These two gallant youths had lived as brothers, yet could resolve not to part without destroying each other; the narrative so wonderfully composed by Sackville, still makes us shudder at each blow received and given.  Books were published to instruct them by a system of quarrelling, “to teach young gentlemen when they are beforehand and when behindhand;” thus they incensed and incited those youths of hope and promise, whom Lord Bacon, in his charge on duelling, calls, in the language of the poet, Aurorae filii, the sons of the morning,—­who often were drowned in their own blood!  But, on a nearer inspection, when we discover the personal malignity of these hasty quarrels, the coarseness of their manners, and the choice of weapons and places in their mode of butchering each other, we must confess that they rarely partake of the spirit of chivalry.  One gentleman biting the ear of a Templar, or switching a poltroon lord; another sending a challenge to fight in a saw-pit; or to strip to their shirts, to mangle each other, were sanguinary duels, which could only have fermented in the disorders of the times, amid that wanton pampered indolence which made them so petulant and pugnacious.  Against this evil his Majesty published a voluminous edict, which exhibits many proofs that it was the labour of his own hand, for the same dignity, the same eloquence, the same felicity of illustration, embellish the state-papers;[B] and to remedy it, James, who rarely consented to shed blood, condemned an irascible lord to suffer the ignominy of the gallows.

[Footnote A:  It may be found in the popular pages of the “Guardian;” there first printed from a MS. in the library of the Harleys.]

[Footnote B:  “A publication of his Majestie’s edict and seuere censure against private combats and combatants, &c.” 1613.  It is a volume of about 150 pages.  As a specimen of the royal style, I transcribe two passages:—­