[Footnote A:  Hacket’s curious “Life of the Lord-keeper Williams,” p. 38, Part 11.]

* * * * *

SPECIMENS OF HIS HUMOUR, AND OBSERVATIONS ON HUMAN LIFE.

The relics of witticisms and observations on human life, on state affairs, in literature and history, are scattered among contemporary writers, and some are even traditional; I regret that I have not preserved many which occurred in the course of reading.  It has happened, however, that a man of genius has preserved for posterity some memorials of the wit, the learning, and the sense of the monarch.[A]

[Footnote A:  In the Harl.  MSS. 7582, Art. 3, one entitled “Crumms fallen from King James’s Table; or his Table-Talk, taken by Sir Thomas Overbury.  The original being in his own handwriting.”  This MS. has been, perhaps, imperfectly printed in “The Prince’s Cabala, or Mysteries of State,” 1715.  This Collection of Sir Thomas Overbury was shortened by his unhappy fate, since he perished early in the reign.—­Another Harl.  MS. contains things “as they were at sundrie times spoken by James I.”  I have drawn others from the Harl.  MSS. 6395.  We have also printed, “Wittie Observations, gathered in King James’s Ordinary Discourse,” 1643; “King James his Apothegmes or Table-Talk as they were by him delivered occasionally, and by the publisher, his quondam servant, carefully received, by B.A. gent. 4^to. in eight leaves, 1643.”  The collector was Ben’n.  Agar, who had gathered them in his youth; “Witty Apothegmes, delivered at several times by King James, King Charles, the Marquis of Worcester,” &c., 1658.

The collection of Apothegms formed by Lord Bacon offers many instances of the king’s wit and sense.  See Lord Bacon’s Apothegms new and old; they are numbered to 275 in the edition 1819.  Basil Montague, in his edition, has separated what he distinguishes as the spurious ones.]

In giving some loose specimens of the wit and capacity of a man, if they are too few, it may be imagined that they are so from their rarity; and if too many, the page swells into a mere collection.  But truth is not over-nice to obtain her purpose, and even the common labours she inspires are associated with her pleasures.

Early in life James I. had displayed the talent of apt allusion, and his classical wit on the Spaniards, that “He expected no other favour from them than the courtesy of Polyphemus to Ulysses—­to be the last devoured,” delighted Elizabeth, and has even entered into our history.  Arthur Wilson, at the close of his “Life of James I.,” has preserved one of his apothegms, while he censures him for not making timely use of it!  “Let that prince, who would beware of conspiracies, be rather jealous of such whom his extraordinary favours have advanced, than of those whom his displeasure have discontented. These want means to execute their pleasures, but those have means at pleasure to execute their desires.”  —­Wilson himself ably develops this important state-observation, by adding, that “Ambition to rule is more vehement than malice to revenge.”  A pointed reflection, which rivals a maxim of Rochefoucault.