of knowledge.  In the present instance, it was an attempt of the Puritans to try the king on his arrival in England; they presented a petition for a conference, called “The Millenary Petition,"[B] from a thousand persons supposed to have signed it; the king would not refuse it; but so far from being “in haste to show his parts,” that when he discovered their pretended grievances were so futile, “he complained that he had been troubled with such importunities, when some more private course might have been taken for their satisfaction.”

[Footnote A:  In political history we usually find that the heads of a party are much wiser than the party themselves, so that, whatever they intend to acquire, their first demands are small; but the honest souls who are only stirred by their own innocent zeal, are sure to complain that their business is done negligently.  Should the party at first succeed, then the bolder spirit, which they have disguised or suppressed through policy, is left to itself; it starts unbridled and at full gallop.  All this occurred in the case of the Puritans.  We find that some of the rigid Nonconformists did confess in a pamphlet, “The Christian’s modest offer of the Silenced Ministers,” 1606, that those who were appointed to speak for them at Hampton Court were not of their nomination or judgment; they insisted that these delegates should declare at once against the whole church establishment, &c., and model the government to each particular man’s notions!  But these delegates prudently refused to acquaint the king with the conflicting opinions of their constituents.—­Lansdowne MSS. 1056, 51.

This confession of the Nonconformists is also acknowledged by their historian Neale, vol. ii. p. 419, 4to edit.]

[Footnote B:  The petition is given at length in Collier’s “Eccles.  Hist.,” vol. ii. p. 672.  At this time also the Lay Catholics of England printed at Donay, “A Petition Apologetical,” to James I. Their language is remarkable; they complained they were excluded “that supreme court of parliament first founded by and for Catholike men, was furnished with Catholike prelates, peeres, and personages; and so continued till the times of Edward VI. a childe, and Queen Elizabeth a woman.”—­Dodd’s “Church History.”]

The narrative of this once celebrated conference, notwithstanding the absurdity of the topics, becomes in the hands of the entertaining Fuller a picturesque and dramatic composition, where the dialogue and the manners of the speakers are after the life.

In the course of this conference we obtain a familiar intercourse with the king; we may admire the capacity of the monarch whose genius was versatile with the subjects; sliding from theme to theme with the ease which only mature studies could obtain; entering into the graver parts of these discussions; discovering a ready knowledge of biblical learning, which would sometimes throw itself out with his natural humour, in apt and familiar illustrations, throughout indulging his own personal feelings with an unparalleled naivete.