poet.  Accident and secret history only reveal this softening feature in his grave and king-like character.  Charles sought no glory from, but only indulged his love for, art and the artists.  There are three manuscripts on his art, by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Ambrosian library, which bear an inscription that a King of England, in 1639, offered one thousand guineas of gold for each.  Charles, too, suggested to the two great painters of his age the subjects he considered worthy of their pencils; and had for his “closet-companions” those native poets for which he was censured in “evil times,” and even by Milton!

In his imprisonment at Carisbrook Castle, the author of the “Eikon Basilike” solaced his royal woes by composing a poem, entitled in the very style of this memorable volume, “Majesty in Misery, or an Imploration to the King of kings;” a title probably not his own, but like that volume, it contains stanzas fraught with the most tender and solemn feeling; such a subject, in the hands of such an author, was sure to produce poetry, although in the unpractised poet we may want the versifier.  A few stanzas will illustrate this conception of part of his character:—­

    The fiercest furies that do daily tread
    Upon my grief, my grey-discrowned head,
    Are those that own my bounty for their bread.

    With my own power my majesty they wound;
    In the king’s name, the king himself uncrowned;
    So doth the dust destroy the diamond.

After a pathetic description of his queen “forced in pilgrimage to seek a tomb,” and “Great Britain’s heir forced into France,” where,

    Poor child, he weeps out his inheritance!

Charles continues: 

    They promise to erect my royal stem;
    To make me great, to advance my diadem;
    If I will first fall down and worship them!

    But for refusal they devour my thrones,
    Distress my children, and destroy my bones;
    I fear they’ll force me to make bread of stones.

And implores, with a martyr’s piety, the Saviour’s forgiveness for those who were more misled than criminal: 

    Such as thou know’st do not know what they do.[199]

As a poet and a painter, Charles is not popularly known; but this article was due, to preserve the memory of the royal votary’s ardour and pure feelings for the love of the Fine Arts.[200]

SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST, AND HIS QUEEN HENRIETTA.

The secret history of Charles the First, and his queen Henrietta of France, opens a different scene from the one exhibited in the passionate drama of our history.