The sovereign whom James most resembled was, we think, Claudius Caesar.  Both had the same feeble vacillating temper, the same childishness, the same coarseness, the same poltroonery.  Both were men of learning; bath wrote and spoke, not, indeed, well, but still in a manner in which it seems almost incredible that men so foolish should have written or spoken.

The follies and indecencies of James are well described in the words which Suetonius uses respecting Claudius:  “Multa talia, etiam privatis deformia, nedum principi, neque infacundo, neque indocto, immo etiam pertinaciter liberalibus studiis dedito.”  The description given by Suetonius of the manner in which the Roman prince transacted business exactly suits the Briton.  “In cognoscendo ac decernendo mira varietate animi fuit, modo circumspectus et sagax, modo inconsultus ac praeceps, nonnunquam frivolus amentique similis.”  Claudius was ruled successively by two bad women:  James successively by two bad men.  Even the description of the person of Claudius, which we find in the ancient memoirs, might, in many points, serve for that of James.  “Ceterum et ingredientem destituebant poplites minus firmi, et remisse quid vel serio, agentem multa dehonestabant, risus indecens, ira turpior, spumante rictu, praeterea linguae titubantia.”

The Parliament which James had called soon after his accession had been refractory.  His second Parliament, called in the spring of 1614, had been more refractory still.  It had been dissolved after a session of two months; and during six years the King had governed without having recourse to the legislature.  During those six years, melancholy and disgraceful events, at home and abroad, had followed one another in rapid succession; the divorce of Lady Essex, the murder of Overbury, the elevation of Villiers, the pardon of Somerset, the disgrace of Coke, the execution of Raleigh, the battle of Prague, the invasion of the Palatinate by Spinola, the ignominious flight of the son-in-law of the English king, the depression of the Protestant interest all over the Continent.  All the extraordinary modes by which James could venture to raise money had been tried.  His necessities were greater than ever; and he was compelled to summon the Parliament in which Hampden first appeared as a public man.

This Parliament lasted about twelve months.  During that time it visited with deserved punishment several of those who, during the preceding six years, had enriched themselves by peculation and monopoly.  Mitchell, one of the grasping patentees who had purchased of the favourite the power of robbing the nation, was fined and imprisoned for life.  Mompesson, the original, it is said, of Massinger’s Overreach, was outlawed and deprived of his ill-gotten wealth.  Even Sir Edward Villiers, the brother of Buckingham, found it convenient to leave England.  A greater name is to be added to the ignominious list.  By this Parliament was brought to justice that illustrious philosopher whose memory genius has half redeemed from the infamy due to servility, to ingratitude, and to corruption.