NOTES

1.

The History of Great Britain, Being the Life and Reign of King James The First, Relating To what passed from his first Accesse to the Crown, till his Death.  By Arthur Wilson, Esq.  London, 1653. (pp. 289-90.)

Arthur Wilson (1595-1652) was a gentleman-in-waiting to Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex, during James’s reign, and was afterwards in the service of Robert Rich, second Earl of Essex.  The History was written towards the end of his life, and published the year after his death.  He was the author also of an autobiography, Observations of God’s Providence in the Tract of my Life (first printed in Francis Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, 1735, Lib.  XII, pp. 6-34), and of three plays, The Swisser (performed at Blackfriars, 1633, first printed in 1904, ed.  Albert Feuillerat, from the MS. in the British Museum), The Corporall (performed, 1633, but not extant), and The Inconstant Lady (first printed in 1814, ed.  Philip Bliss, from the MS. in the Bodleian Library).  The three plays were entered in the Registers of the Stationers’ Company, September 4, 1646, and September 9, 1653.  But nothing he wrote appears to have been published during his life.

Page 2, l. 24. Peace begot Plenty.  An adaptation of the wellknown saying which Puttenham in his Arte of English Poesie (ed.  Arber, p. 217) attributes to Jean de Meung.  Puttenham gives it thus: 

  Peace makes plentie, plentie makes pride,
  Pride breeds quarrell, and quarrell brings warre: 
  Warre brings spoile, and spoile pouertie,
  Pouertie pacience, and pacience peace: 
  So peace brings warre, and warre brings peace.

It is found also in Italian and Latin.  Allusions to it are frequent in the seventeenth century.  Compare the beginning of Swift’s Battle of the Books, and see the correspondence in The Times Literary Supplement, February 17-March 30, 1916.

2.

The Court and Character of King James.  Written and taken by Sir A.W. being an eye, and eare witnesse.  Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit regnare.  Published by Authority.  London, MDCL.

‘The Character of King James’ forms a section by itself at the conclusion of the volume, pp. 177-89.  The volume was reprinted in the following year, when there were added to it ’The Court of King Charles’ and ’Observations (instead of a Character) upon this King, from his Childe-hood’.  Both editions are carelessly printed.  The second, which corrects some of the errors of the first but introduces others, has been used for the present text.