Represse the proud, maintaining aye the right;
  Walk always so, as ever in his sight,
  Who guards the godly, plaguing the prophane.

The poems of James I. are the versifications of a man of learning and meditation.  Such an one could not fail of producing lines which reflect the mind of their author.  I find in a MS. these couplets, which condense an impressive thought on a favourite subject:—­

  Crownes have their compasse, length of daies their date,
  Triumphs their tombes, Felicitie her fate;
  Of more than earth, can earth make none partaker;
  But knowledge makes the king most like his Maker.[A]

[Footnote A:  “Harl.  MSS.,” 6824.]

These are among the elevated conceptions the king had formed of the character of a sovereign, and the feeling was ever present in his mind.  James has preserved an anecdote of Henry VIII., in commenting on it, which serves our purpose:—­

“It was strange,” said James I., “to look into the life of Henry VIII., how like an epicure he lived!  Henry once asked, whether he might be saved?  He was answered, ’That he had no cause to fear, having lived so mighty a king.’  ‘But, oh!’ said he, ‘I have lived too like a king.’  He should rather have said, not like a king—­for the office of a king is to do justice and equity; but he only served his sensuality, like a beast.”

Henry VII. was the favourite character of James I.; and it was to gratify the king that Lord Bacon wrote the life of this wise and prudent monarch.  It is remarkable of James I., that he never mentioned the name of Elizabeth without some expressive epithet of reverence; such as, “The late queen of famous memory;” a circumstance not common among kings, who do not like to remind the world of the reputation of a great predecessor.  But it suited the generous temper of that man to extol the greatness he admired, whose philosophic toleration was often known to have pardoned the libel on himself for the redeeming virtue of its epigram.  In his forgiving temper, James I. would call such effusions “the superfluities of idle brains.”

* * * * *

“THE BOOK OF SPORTS.”

But while the mild government of this monarch has been covered with the political odium of arbitrary power, he has also incurred a religious one, from his design of rendering the Sabbath a day for the poor alike of devotion and enjoyment, hitherto practised in England, as it is still throughout Europe.  Plays were performed on Sundays at court, in Elizabeth’s reign; and yet “the Protestants of Elizabeth” was the usual expressive phrase to mark those who did most honour to the reformed.  The king, returning from Scotland, found the people in Lancashire discontented, from the unusual deprivation of their popular recreations on Sundays and holidays, after the church service.  “With our own ears we heard the general complaint of our people.”  The Catholic priests were