encountered the horrors of dissolution. _Religion_ rendered cheerful the
abrupt night of futurity; and what can _philosophy_ do more, or rather,
can philosophy do as much?
I proposed to have examined with some care the works of James I.; but
that uninviting task has been now postponed till it is too late. As a
writer, his works may not be valuable, and are infected with the
pedantry and the superstition of the age; yet I _suspect_ that James was
not that degraded and feeble character in which he ranks by the
contagious voice of criticism. He has had more critics than readers.
After a great number of acute observations and witty allusions, made
extempore, which we find continually recorded of him by contemporary
writers, and some not friendly to him, I conclude that he possessed a
great promptness of wit, and much solid judgment and acute ingenuity. It
requires only a little labour to prove this.
That labour I have since zealously performed. This article, composed
_more than thirty years_ ago, displays the effects of first impressions
and popular clamours. About _ten_ years I _suspected_ that his character
was grossly injured, and _lately_ I found how it has suffered from a
variety of causes. That monarch preserved for us a peace of more than
twenty years; and his talents were of a higher order than the calumnies
of the party who have remorselessly degraded him have allowed a common
inquirer to discover. For the rest I must refer the reader to "An
Inquiry into the Literary and Political Character of James I.;" in which
he may find many correctives for this article. I shall in a future work
enter into further explanations of this ambiguous royal author.