* * * * *

JAMES THE FIRST DISCOVERS THE DISORDERS AND DISCONTENTS OF A PEACE OF MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS.

The king was himself amazed at the disorders and discontents he at length discovered; and, in one of his later speeches, has expressed a mournful disappointment:

"And now, I confess, that when I looked before upon the face of the government, I thought, as every man would have done, that the people were never so happy as in my time; but even, as at divers times I have looked upon many of my coppices, riding about them, and they appeared, on the outside, very thick and well-grown unto me, but, when I turned into the midst of them, I found them all bitten within, and full of plains and bare spots; like the apple or pear, fair and smooth without, but when you cleave it asunder, you find it rotten at heart. Even so this kingdom, the external government being as good as ever it was, and I am sure as learned judges as ever it had, and I hope as honest administering justice within it; and for peace, both at home and abroad, more settled, and longer lasting, than ever any before; together with as great plenty as ever: so as it may be thought, every man might sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree," &c. &c.[A]

But while we see this king of peace surrounded by national grievances, and that "this fair coppice was very thick and well-grown," yet loud in murmurs, to what cause are we to attribute them? Shall we exclaim with Catharine Macaulay against "the despotism of James," and "the intoxication of his power?"—a monarch who did not even enforce the proclamations or edicts his wisdom dictated;[B] and, as Hume has observed, while vaunting his prerogative, had not a single regiment of guards to maintain it. Must we agree with Hume, and reproach the king with his indolence and lore of amusement—"particularly of hunting?"[C]

[Footnote A: Rushworth, vol. i. p. 29; sub anno 1621.]

[Footnote B: James I. said, "I will never offer to bring a new custom upon my people without the people's consent; like a good physician, tell them what is amiss, if they will not concur to amend it, yet I have discharged my part." Among the difficulties of this king was that of being a foreigner, and amidst the contending factions of that day the "British Solomon" seems to have been unjustly reproached for his Scottish partialities.]

[Footnote C: La Boderie, the French Ambassador, complains of the king's frequent absences; but James did not wish too close an intercourse with one who was making a French party about Prince Henry, and whose sole object was to provoke a Spanish war: the king foiled the French intriguer; but has incurred his contempt for being "timid and irresolute." James's cautious neutrality was no merit in the Frenchman's eye.

La Boderie resided at our court from 1606 to 1611, and his "Ambassades," in 5 vols., are interesting in English history. The most satirical accounts of the domestic life of James, especially in his unguarded hours of boisterous merriment, are found in the correspondence of the French ambassadors. They studied to flavour their dish, made of spy and gossip, to the taste of their master. Henry IV. never forgave James for his adherence to Spain and peace, instead of France and warlike designs.]

* * * * *

THE KING'S PRIVATE LIFE IN HIS OCCASIONAL RETIREMENTS.

The king's occasional retirements to Royston and Newmarket have even been surmised to have borne some analogy to the horrid Capraea of Tiberius; but a witness has accidentally detailed the king's uniform life in these occasional seclusions. James I. withdrew at times from public life, but not from public affairs; and hunting, to which he then gave alternate days, was the cheap amusement and requisite exercise of his sedentary habits: but the chase only occupied a few hours. A part of the day was spent by the king in his private studies; another at his dinners, where he had a reader, and was perpetually sending to Cambridge for books of reference: state affairs were transacted at night; for it was observed, at the time, that his secretaries sat up later at night, in those occasional retirements, than when they were at London.[A] I have noticed, that the state papers were composed by himself; that he wrote letters on important occasions without consulting any one; and that he derived little aid from his secretaries. James was probably never indolent; but the uniform life and sedentary habits of literary men usually incur this reproach from those real idlers who bustle in a life of nothingness. While no one loved more the still-life of peace than this studious monarch, whose habits formed an agreeable combination of the contemplative and the active life, study and business—no king more zealously tried to keep down the growing abuses of his government, by personally concerning himself in the protection of the subject.[B]

[Footnote A: Hacket's Scrinia Reserata, Part I. p. 27.]

[Footnote B: As evidences of this zeal for reform, I throw into this note some extracts from the MS. letters of contemporaries.—Of the king's interference between the judges of two courts about prohibitions, Sir Dudley Carleton gives this account:—"The king played the best part in collecting arguments on both sides, and concluded that he saw much endeavour to draw water to their several mills; and advised them to take moderate courses, whereby the good of the subject might be more respected than their particular jurisdictions. The king sat also at the Admiralty, to look himself into certain disorders of government there; he told the lawyers 'he would leave hunting of hares, and hunt them in their quirks and subtilities, with which the subject had been too long abused.'"—MS. Letter of Sir Dudley Carleton.

In "Winwood's Memorials of State" there is a letter from Lord Northampton, who was present at one of these strict examinations of the king; and his language is warm with admiration: the letter being a private one, can hardly be suspected of court flattery. "His Majesty hath in person, with the greatest dexterity of wit and strength of argument that mine ears ever heard, compounded between the parties of the civil and ecclesiastical courts, who begin to comply, by the king's sweet temper, on points that were held to be incompatible."—Winwood's Mem. iii. p. 54.

In his progresses through the country, if any complained of having received injury from any of the court, the king punished, or had satisfaction made to the wronged, immediately.]

* * * * *

DISCREPANCIES OF OPINION AMONG THE DECRIERS OF JAMES THE FIRST.

Let us detect, among the modern decriers of the character of James I., those contradictory opinions, which start out in the same page; for the conviction of truth flashed on the eyes of those who systematically vilified him, and must often have pained them; while it embarrassed and confused those, who, being of no party, yet had adopted the popular notions. Even Hume is at variance with himself; for he censures James for his indolence, "which prevented him making any progress in the practice of foreign politics, and diminished that regard which all the neighbouring nations had paid to England during the reign of his predecessor," p. 29. Yet this philosopher observes afterwards, on the military character of Prince Henry, at p. 63, that "had he lived, he had probably promoted the glory; perhaps not the felicity, of his people. The unhappy prepossession of men in favour of ambition, &c., engages them into such pursuits as destroy their own peace, and that of the rest of mankind." This is true philosophy, however politicians may comment, and however the military may command the state. Had Hume, with all the sweetness of his temper, been a philosopher on the throne, himself had probably incurred the censure he passed on James I. Another important contradiction in Hume deserves detection. The king, it seems, "boasted of his management of Ireland as his masterpiece." According to the accounts of Sir John Davies, whose political works are still read, and whom Hume quotes, James I. "in the space of nine years made greater advances towards the reformation of that kingdom than had been effected in more than four centuries;" on this Hume adds that the king's "vanity in this particular was not without foundation." Thus in describing that wisest act of a sovereign, the art of humanising his ruder subjects by colonisation, so unfortunate is James, that even his most skilful apologist, influenced by popular prepossessions, employs a degrading epithet—and yet he, who had indulged a sarcasm on the vanity of James, in closing his general view of his wise administration in Ireland, is carried away by his nobler feelings. —"Such were the arts," exclaims the historian, "by which James introduced humanity and justice among a people who had ever been buried in the most profound barbarism. Noble cares! much superior to the vain and criminal glory of conquests." Let us add, that had the genius of James the First been warlike, had he commanded a battle to be fought and a victory to be celebrated, popular historians, the panders of ambition, had adorned their pages with bloody trophies; but the peace the monarch cultivated; the wisdom which dictated the plan of civilisation; and the persevering arts which put it into practice—these are the still virtues which give no motion to the spectacle of the historian, and are even forgotten in his pages.

What were the painful feelings of Catharine Macaulay, in summing up the character of James the First. The king has even extorted from her a confession, that "his conduct in Scotland was unexceptionable," but "despicable in his Britannic government." To account for this seeming change in a man who, from his first to his last day, was always the same, required a more sober historian. She tells us also, he affected "a sententious wit;" but she adds, that it consisted "only of quaint and stale conceits." We need not take the word of Mrs. Macaulay, since we have so much of this "sententious wit" recorded, of which probably she knew little. Forced to confess that James's education had been "a more learned one than is usually bestowed on princes," we find how useless it is to educate princes at all; for this "more learned education" made this prince "more than commonly deficient in all the points he pretended to have any knowledge of." This incredible result gives no encouragement for a prince; having a Buchanan for his tutor. Smollett, having compiled the popular accusations of the "vanity, the prejudices, the littleness of soul," of this abused monarch, surprises one in the same page by discovering enough good qualities to make something more than a tolerable king. "His reign, though ignoble to himself, was happy to his people, who were enriched by commerce, felt no severe impositions, while they made considerable progress in their liberties." So that, on the whole, the nation appears not to have had all the reason they have so fully exercised in deriding and vilifying a sovereign, who had made them prosperous at the price of making himself contemptible! I shall notice another writer, of an amiable character, as an evidence of the influence of popular prejudice, and the effect of truth.

When James went to Denmark to fetch his queen, he passed part of his time among the learned; but such was his habitual attention in studying the duties of the sovereign, that he closely attended the Danish courts of justice; and Daines Barrington, in his curious "Observations on the Statutes," mentions, that the king borrowed from the Danish code three statutes for the punishment of criminals. But so provocative of sarcasm is the ill-used name of this monarch, that our author could not but shrewdly observe, that James "spent more time in those courts than in attending upon his destined consort." Yet this is not true: the king was jovial there, and was as indulgent a husband as he was a father. Osborne even censures James for once giving marks of his uxoriousness![A] But while Daines Barrington degrades, by unmerited ridicule, the honourable employment of the "British Solomon," he becomes himself perplexed at the truth that flashes on his eyes. He expresses the most perfect admiration of James the First, whose statutes he declares "deserve much to be enforced; nor do I find any one which hath the least tendency to extend the prerogative, or abridge the liberties and rights of his subjects." He who came to scoff remained to pray. Thus a lawyer, in examining the laws of James the First, concludes by approaching nearer to the truth: the step was a bold one! He says, "It is at present a sort of fashion to suppose that this king, because he was a pedant, had no real understanding, or merit." Had Daines Barrington been asked for proofs of the pedantry of James the First, he had been still more perplexed; but what can be more convincing than a lawyer, on a review of the character of James the First, being struck, as he tells us, by "his desire of being instructed in the English law, and holding frequent conferences for this purpose with the most eminent lawyers,—as Sir Edward Coke, and others!" Such was the monarch whose character was perpetually reproached for indolent habits, and for exercising arbitrary power! Even Mr. Brodie, the vehement adversary of the Stuarts, quotes and admires James's prescient decision on the character of Laud in that remarkable conversation with Buckingham and Prince Charles recorded by Hacket.[B]

[Footnote A: See "Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii. p. 334.]

[Footnote B: Brodie's "History of British Empire," vol. ii. p. 244, 411.]

But let us leave these moderns perpetuating traditional prejudices, and often to the fiftieth echo, still sounding with no voice of its own, to learn what the unprejudiced contemporaries of James I. thought of the cause of the disorders of their age. They were alike struck by the wisdom and the zeal of the monarch, and the prevalent discontents of this long reign of peace. At first, says the continuator of Stowe, all ranks but those "who were settled in piracy," as he designates the cormorants of war, and curiously enumerates their classes, "were right joyful of the peace; but, in a few years afterwards, all the benefits were generally forgotten, and the happiness of the general peace of the most part contemned." The honest annalist accounts for this unexpected result by the natural reflection—"Such is the world's corruption, and man's vile ingratitude."[A] My philosophy enables me to advance but little beyond. A learned contemporary, Sir Symond D'Ewes, in his manuscript diary, notices the death of the monarch, whom he calls "our learned and peaceable sovereign."—"It did not a little amaze me to see all men generally slight and disregard the loss of so mild and gentle a prince, which made me even to feel, that the ensuing times might yet render his loss more sensible, and his memory more dear unto posterity." Sir Symond censures the king for not engaging in the German war to support the Palsgrave, and maintain "the true church of God;" but deeper politicians have applauded the king for avoiding a war, in which he could not essentially have served the interests of the rash prince who had assumed the title of King of Bohemia.[B] "Yet," adds Sir Symond, "if we consider his virtues and his learning, his augmenting the liberties of the English, rather than his oppressing them by any unlimited or illegal taxes and corrosions, his death deserved more sorrow and condolement from his subjects than it found."[C]

[Footnote A: Stowe's Annals, p. 845.]

[Footnote B: See Sir Edward Walker's "Hist. Discourses," p. 321; and Barrington's "Observ. on the Statutes," who says, "For this he deserves the highest praise and commendation from a nation of islanders."]

[Footnote C: Harl. MSS. 646.]

Another contemporary author, Wilson, has not ill-traced the generations of this continued peace—"peace begot plenty, plenty begot ease and wantonness, and ease and wantonness begot poetry, and poetry swelled out into that bulk in this king's time which begot monstrous satyrs." Such were the laseivious times, which dissolving the ranks of society in a general corruption, created on one part the imaginary and unlimited wants of prosperity; and on the other produced the riotous children of indolence, and the turbulent adventurers of want. The rank luxuriance of this reign was a steaming hot-bed of peace, which proved to be the seed-plot of that revolution which was reserved for the unfortunate son.

In the subsequent reign a poet seems to have taken a retrospective view of the age of peace of James I. contemplating on its results in his own disastrous times—

—States that never know A change but in their growth, which a long peace Hath brought unto perfection, are like steel, Which being neglected will consume itself With its own rust; so doth Security Eat through the hearts of states, while they are sleeping And lulled into false quiet.

NABB'S Hannibal and Scipio.

* * * * *

SUMMARY OF HIS CHARACTER.

Thus the continued peace of James I. had calamities of its own! Are we to attribute them to the king? It has been usual with us, in the solemn expiations of our history, to convert the sovereign into the scape-goat for the people; the historian, like the priest of the Hebrews, laying his hands on Azazel,[A] the curses of the multitude are heaped on that devoted head. And thus the historian conveniently solves all ambiguous events.

[Footnote A: The Hebrew name, which Calmet translates Bouc Emissaire, and we Scape Goat, or rather Escape Goat.]

The character of James I. is a moral phenomenon, a singularity of a complex nature. We see that we cannot trust to those modern writers who have passed their censures upon him, however just may be those very censures; for when we look narrowly into their representations, as surely we find, perhaps without an exception, that an invective never closes without some unexpected mitigating circumstance, or qualifying abatement. At the moment of inflicting the censure, some recollection in opposition to what is asserted passes in the mind, and to approximate to Truth, they offer a discrepancy, a self-contradiction. James must always be condemned on a system, while his apology is only allowed the benefit of a parenthesis.

How it has happened that our luckless crowned philosopher has been the common mark at which so many quivers have been emptied, should be quite obvious when so many causes were operating against him. The shifting positions into which he was cast, and the ambiguity of his character, will unriddle the enigma of his life. Contrarieties cease to be contradictions when operated on by external causes.

James was two persons in one, frequently opposed to each other. He was an antithesis in human nature—or even a solecism. We possess ample evidence of his shrewdness and of his simplicity; we find the lofty regal style mingled with his familiar bonhommie. Warm, hasty, and volatile, yet with the most patient zeal to disentangle involved deception; such gravity in sense, such levity in humour; such wariness and such indiscretion; such mystery and such openness—all these must have often thrown his Majesty into some awkward dilemmas. He was a man of abstract speculation in the theory of human affairs; too witty or too aphoristic, he never seemed at a loss to decide, but too careless, perhaps too infirm, ever to come to a decision, he leaned on others. He shrunk from the council-table; he had that distaste for the routine of business which studious sedentary men are too apt to indulge; and imagined that his health, which he said was the health of the kingdom, depended on the alternate days which he devoted to the chase; Royston and Theobalds were more delectable than a deputation from the Commons, or the Court at Whitehall.

It has not always been arbitrary power which has forced the people into the dread circle of their fate, seditions, rebellions, and civil wars; nor always oppressive taxation which has given rise to public grievances. Such were not the crimes of James the First. Amid the full blessings of peace, we find how the people are prone to corrupt themselves, and how a philosopher on the throne, the father of his people, may live without exciting gratitude, and die without inspiring regret—unregarded, unremembered!



INDEX.

ABERNETHY'S opinion of enthusiasm, 145.

ABSTRACTION of mind in great men, 133-136.

ACTORS, traits of character in great, 137.

ADRIAN VI., Pope, persecutes literary men, 18.

AESTHETIC Critics, 282.

AKENSIDE on the nature of genius, 30.

ALFIERI, childhood of, 32; loneliness of his character, 96; excited by Plutarch's works, 141.

ANGELO, Michael, illustrates Dante, 21; his ideas of intellectual labour, 85; his reason for a solitary life, 111; his picture of battle of Pisa destroyed by Bandinelli, 158; his elevated character, 252; his letter to Vasari describing the death of his servant, 373.

ANTIPATHIES of men of genius, 160-163.

ANXIETY of genius, 74; of authors and artists over their labours, 80-88.

ARISTOPHANES, popularised by a false preface, 287.

ART FRIENDSHIPS, 209-210.

ARTISTS, "Studies," or first thoughts, 131; their mutual jealousies, 156-158.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY, its interest, 295.

BARRY the painter, his love of ancient literature, 23; his general enthusiasm, 60; his rude eloquence, 107.

BAILLET and his catalogue, 352.

BEATTIE describes the powerful effect on himself of metaphysical study, 147.

BIRCH, Dr., and Robertson the Historian, 342-350.

BOCCACCIO'S friendship for Petrarch, 212-214.

BOOK COLLECTORS, 227-231.

BOOKSELLERS, the test of public opinion, 194.

BOSIUS, his researches in the Roman catacombs, 144.

BOYLE on the disposition of childhood, 31; his advertisement against visitors, n, 113; his idea of a literary retreat, 188.

BRUCE the traveller disbelieved, 78.

BUFFON gives a reason for his fame, 92.

BUONAPARTE revives old military tactics, 266.

BURNS'S diary of the heart, 71.

BURTON, his constitutional melancholy, 220.

BUNYAN a self-taught genius, 60.

BYRON'S loneliness of feeling, n., 96.

CALUMNY frequently attacks genius, 185.

CANTENAC and his autobiography, 296.

CARACCI, the, their unfortunate jealousies, 157.

CASTAGNO murders a rival artist, 157.

CHARLES V., friendship for Titian, 253; Robertson's life of, 343.

CHATELET, Madame de, a female philosopher and friend of Voltaire, 95.

CHATHAM, Earl of, his constancy of study, 96.

CHENIER a literary fratricide, 173.

CICERO on youthful influence, 32.

CLARENDON, his love of retirement, 111.

COACHES, their first invention, 359.

COAL, its first use as fuel, 362.

COMA VIGIL, a disease produced by study, 147.

COMPOSITION, its toils, 80-81.

CONTEMPORARY criticism, frequently unjust, 75.

CONVERSATIONS of men of genius, 99-109; those who converse well seldom write well, 104.

COTIN, Abbe, troubled by wealth, 188.

CRACHERODE, Rev. C.M., his collections of art and literature, n., 13.

CRITICISM not always just, 65-75.

CURRIE, his idea of the power of genius, 26.

CUVIER'S discoveries in natural history, 145.

DANTE, his great abstraction of mind, 134.

DEATHS of literary men, 243.

DEPRECIATION, theory of, 160.

DIARIES, their value, 122.

DISEASE induced by severe study, 147.

DOMENICHINO poisoned by rivals, 158.

DOMESTIC Novelties at first condemned, 355-364.

DOMESTIC life of literary men, 173-186.

DREAMS of eminent men, 127-128.

DROUAIS an enthusiastic painter, 153.

ENGLAND and its tastes, 264.

FAMILY affection an incentive to genius, 179-182.

FENELON'S early enthusiasm for Greece, 151.

FIRST STUDIES of great men, 55-59; first thoughts for great works, 129-133.

FORKS, when first used, 356.

FRANKLIN, Dr., notes the calming of the sea, 133; his influence on American manners, 272.

FUSELI'S imaginative power, 151.

GALILEO invents the pendulum, 132.

GALVANISM first discovered, 133.

GESNER recommends a study of literature to artists, 22; on enthusiasm, 154; his wife a model for those of literary men, 206-208.

GLEIM and his portrait gallery, 211.

GOLDSMITH contrasted with Johnson, 294.

GOLDONI overworks his mind, 147.

GOVERNMENT of the thoughts, 117.

GRAY'S excitement in composing verse, 141;

GUIBERT, his great work on military tactics, 265.

HABITUAL PURSUITS, their power over the mind, 302-304.

HALLUCINATIONS of genius, 148; realities with some minds, 150.

HAYDN, his regulation of his time, 92.

HELMONT'S (Van) love of study, 152.

HERBERT of Cherbury, Lord, questions the Deity as to the publication of his book, 148.

HOBBES, theory to explain his terror, 150.

HOGARTH, attacks on, n. 87.

HOLLIS, his miserable celibacy, 201.

HONOURS awarded literary men, 249-258.

HORNE (Bishop), his love of literary labour, 135.

HUME the historian, his irritability, 86; unfitted for gay life, 99; gives his reason for literary labour, n. 177; endeavours to correct Robertson, 342.

HUNTER, Dr., fraternal jealousy, 156.

HYPOCHONDRIA, its cause and effect, 150.

IDEALITY defined, 137; its power, 138-154.

INCOMPLETED books, 350-355.

INDUSTRY of great writers, 125.

INFLUENCE of authors, 267-270; 273-277.

INTELLECTUAL nobility, 250.

IMITATION in literature, 305-307.

IRRITABILITY of genius, 70, 86-88.

ISOCRATES' belief in native character, 32.

JAMES I., a critical disquisition on the character of, 385-455.

JULIAN, Emperor, anecdotes of, 97.

JEALOUSY in art and literature, 154-159; of honours paid to literary men, 251.

JOHNSON, Dr., defines the literary character, 12; his moral dignity, 192; his metaphysical loves, 200; anecdotes of him and Goldsmith, 294.

JUVENILE WORKS, their value, 67.

LABOUR endured by great authors, 75; a pleasure to some minds, 176-177.

LETTERS in the vernacular idiom, 375-379.

LINNAEUS sensitive to ridicule, 75; honours awarded to, 191.

LITERARY FRIENDSHIP, 209-217.

LITERATURE an avenue to glory, 248.

LOCKE'S simile of the human mind, 25.

MANNERISTS in literature, 293.

MARCO Polo ridiculed unjustly, n. 79.

MATRIMONIAL STATE in literature and art, 198-208.

MAZZUCHELLI a great literary historian, 352.

MEDITATION, value of, 129.

MEMORY, as an art, 120, 122.

MENDELSSOHN, Moses, his remarkable history, 61-64.

MEN of LETTERS, their definition, 226-238.

METASTASIO a bad sportsman, 38; his susceptibility, 140.

MILTON, his high idea of the literary character, 12; his theory of genius, 25; his love of study, 135; sacrifices sight to poetry, 152.

MISCELLANISTS and their works, 282-286.

MODES OF STUDY used by great men, 125.

MOLIERE, his dramatic career, 310-325.

MONTAIGNE, his personal traits, 223.

MORE, Dr., on enthusiasm of genius, 149.

MORERI devotes a life to literature, 152.

MORTIMER the artist, his athletic exercises, 39.

MURATORI, his literary industry, 351.

NATIONAL tastes in literature, 260.

NECESSITY, its influence on literature, 193-194.

OBSCURE BIRTHS of great men, 248-249.

OLD AGE of literary men, 238-244.

PECULIAR habits of authors, 119-120.

PEIRESC, his early bias toward literature, 234; his studious career, 235.

PERSONAL CHARACTER differs from the literary one, 217-226.

PETRARCH'S remarkable conversation on his melancholy, 68; his mode of life, 114.

POPE, his anxiety over his Homer, 81; severity of his early studies, 147.

POUSSIN fears trading in art, 193.

POVERTY of literary men, 186; sometimes a choice, 188-190.

PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE of life wanting in studious men, 183-185.

PRAYERS of great men, 146.

PRECIEUSES, 315-318.

PREDISPOSITION of the mind, 118.

PREFACES, their interest, 286; their occasional falsehood, 287; vanity of authors in, 288; idle apologies in, 289; Dryden's interesting, 290.

PREJUDICES, literary, 160-163.

PUBLIC TASTE formed by public writers, 268.

RACINE, sensibility of, 83; 325-332.

RAMBOUILLET, Hotel de, 315-317.

READING analyzed, 298-302.

RECLUSE manners in great authors, 98-99.

RELICS of men of genius, 255-258.

REMUNERATION of literature, 194-195.

RESIDENCES of literary men, 255-257.

REYNOLDS, Sir J., his "automatic system," 26; discovers its inconsistencies, 27.

RIDICULE the terror of genius, 94

ROBERTSON the historian, 341-350.

ROLAND, Madame, anecdote of the power of poetry on, 141.

ROMNEY, his anxiety over his picture of the Tempest, 81-82.

ROUSSEAU'S expedient to endure society, 73; his domestic infelicity, 175.

ROYAL SOCIETY, attacks on, n. 14.

RUBENS' transcripts of the poets, 21.

SANDWICH, Lord, his first idea of a stratagem at sea, 132.

SCUDERY, Mademoiselle, 316.

SENSITIVENESS of genius, 72, 78, 78; 139-140.

SELF-IMMOLATION of genius to labour, 152.

SELF-PRAISE of genius, 162-170.

SERVANTS, a dissertation on, 364-374.

SHEE, Sir M.A., relations of poetry and painting, n., 21.

SHENSTONE, his early love, 199.

SIDDONS, Mrs., anecdote of, 137.

SINGLENESS of genius, 245-247.

SOCIETY, artificial, an injury to genius, 90.

SOLITUDE loved by men of genius, 35-40; 109-115.

STEAM first discovered, 133.

STUDIES of advanced life, 241-243.

STERNE, anecdotes of, 332-340.

STYLE and its peculiarities, 291-294.

SUSCEPTIBILITY of men of genius, 170-172.

SUGGESTIONS of one mind perfected by another, 275-276.

TASSO uneasy in his labours, 84.

TAYLOR, Dr. Brooke, his torpid melancholy, 175.

TEMPLE, Sir W., his love of gardens, 283.

THEORETICAL history, 342.

THOMSON, his sensitiveness to grand poetry, 142; irritability over false criticisms, 65.

TOBACCO, its introduction to England, 362.

TOOTHPICKS, origin of, 358.

TOWNLEY Gallery of Sculpture, n., 13.

TROUBADOURS, their influence, 285.

UMBRELLAS, their history, 358.

UTILITARIANISM and its narrow view of literature, 15.

UNIVERSALITY Of genius, 244.

VAN PRAUN refuses to part with his collection to an emperor, 229.

VERNET sketches in a storm, 144.

VERS DE SOCIETE, 308-310.

VINDICTIVENESS of genius, 170-173.

VISIONARIES of genius, 148.

VISITORS disliked by literary men, 112-113.

VOLTAIRE, anecdote of his visit to a country house, 95; his universal genius, 245.

WALPOLE's, Horace, opinion of Gray, 91; of Burke, ib.

WATSON neglects research in his professorship, 17.

WERNER'S discoveries in science, 145.

WILKES desirous of literary glory, 17.

WIT sometimes mechanical, 126.

WIVES of literary men, 202-208.

WORKS intended, but not executed, 123.

WOOD, Anthony, sacrifices all to study, 152.

YOUNG the poet, his want of sympathy, 185.

YOUTH of great men, 34-54.

THE END.



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A Century of Anecdote. Compiled and Edited by JOHN TIMBS. With Frontispiece.

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Don Quixote (Life and Adventures of). By CERVANTES.

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