nuine induction, widely differing from that puerile art which till then had solely prevailed in philosophy. His requires a sufficient, an accurate collection of instances, gathered with sagacity and recorded with impartial plainness, on both sides of the question: from which, after viewing them in all possible lights, to be sure that no contradictory instances can be brought, some portion of useful truth, leading on to further discoveries, may be at last fairly deduced. In this way, experiments and reasonings grow up together, to support and illustrate each other mutually, in every part of science.

As we are now approaching towards the most An. 1621. memorable event of our author's public life, which ended in a melancholy reverse of his fortune and honour, it will be necessary to trace, step by step, the causes that produced it: especially as the affair has not been hitherto considered in the point of view that renders it most interesting and instructive. It will, I believe, appear with evidence, that, whatever his crimes might be, he was sacrificed to the safety of another, far more criminal than himself: and that this was the act of an ill-judging master, with whom it was a greater merit to be amusing in any degree, than to be serviceable in the greatest.

.. Among the weaknesses of king James, his vanity was the most pernicious to his own family, and to the nation in general. He placed an infinite value on certain chimerical advantages that met in his person; on that inherent right by which, he pretended, the crown of England was devolved to him; on his long acquaintance with the prime mysteries of government; and on his uncommon accomplishments in learning. His favourite maxim was, that he who knows not how to dissemble, knows not how to reign: but he seems not to have heard of a second maxim, without which the first cannot be successful, even for a time; to conceal every appearance of cunning, and to deceive under the guise of candour and good faith. He, on the contrary, shewed his whole game at once, to his own subjects and to

foreigners alike so that in his attempts upon the former, in his negotiations with the latter, this Solomon was the only dupe. A great share of learning he certainly had, but of learning that a king ought not to be acquainted with; the very refuse of the schools, which served for little else but to furnish him with an impertinent fluency, on every subject: and he indulged himself in the sovereign pedantry of setting it to show, on every occasion. On all these heads, he was extolled without measure by the most pestilent of flatterers, grave and reverend ecclesiastics: for which, and because they encouraged him in an unprincely application of his talent, he, on many occasions, made his power the mean instrument to gratify their passions and lust of dominion. They, in return, found out for him a title antecedent and superior to human laws, even a divine right of being weak or wicked without control. And this doctrine, horrible as it is, they dared to derive from Scripture: where if it could be found, which to affirm were blasphemy, it would be the triumph of infidelity, and demonstration that those sacred writings were inspired, not by God, but by some being, his opposite and the enemy of all goodness. This doctrine, meeting with his own perverted habits of thinking, made king James look upon his subjects as slaves; upon his parliaments as usurpers of a power to which they had no right, or at best a precarious one: and he had now, for seven years together, affected to govern without them; to set up an interest separate from that of his people, and to supply his wants by all ways and means, but such as the constitution prescribed. Hacket, These methods were suggested to him by the worst enemies of the commonwealth, the tribe of projectors and monopolists: miscreants who sheltered themselves under the name and influence of Buckingham, and who repaid his protection extravagantly, at the expence of a people whom they were grinding and devouring. His mother too, now created a countess in her own right, a woman born for mischief, of a meddling spirit and insatiably greedy, was deep in

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the guilt of these transactions; forwarding every bad project that brought her in money; and, by the mighty power she had over her son, succeeding in every scandalous job she undertook. Under an administration like this, when England was in effect goverend by a dissolute youth, himself in the hands. of an intriguing, rapacious woman, it cannot be surprising that the people were vexed and plundered by illegal patents, by monopolies, by other mischievous projects, calculated to enrich a few, and to ruin thousands. To all these patents, however procured, the chancellor had readily, almost implicitly, affixed the seal, as the mere creature of Buckingham: or if he ever ventured to insinuate that any of them were contrary to law, his remonstrance was too fearful and unsupported to produce any effect. This is the great stain on his character, that he deserted, or neglected, the post of honour where Providence had placed him, on the frontier, if I may so speak, betwixt Prerogative and Liberty; that, if he did not encourage, he at least connived at, the invasions that were every day making into the latter. Yet this was against his inclination, as well as against his better sense of things; for as he knew well that his master's true interest lay in a good understanding with his people, he had often advised him to call frequent parliaments, and to throw himself on the affections of the nation for the support of his government. Though such advice was repugnant to all the maxims by which that monarch wished to establish his power; though he had resolved to lay parliaments aside for ever, as daring encroachers upon his prerogative, who made themselves greater and their prince less than became either: yet he was now prevailed upon to meet the two houses once more. Indeed the exigency of his affairs rendered it necessary. His subjects, it is true, were harassed and pillaged; but he was still in extreme want of money: those wretches, to whom he delegated his authority, leaving to him little else besides the public hatred, occasioned by their rapines committed in his name. Add to this, that the junc

ture appeared favourable for obtaining fresh supplies from the commons. As the whole body of the nation expressed an uncommon zeal for recovering the palatinate to his unfortunate son-in-law, he had reason to expect, that, on assurance of his entering heartily into a war, they would vote him considerable aids of money; which he might afterwards divert, as he actually did, to other purposes that better suited his genius and notions.

A parliament was accordingly summoned and it met on the 20th January, 1621. The king was not wholly mistaken in his conjecture: for the commons immediately voted him two entire subsidies; but went at the same time upon a strict inquiry into those arbitrary impositions, that, in a period of seven years, were become insupportable to the people. Among the monopolies in particular, there were three of flagrant injustice and oppression. Certain persons had obtained patents from the king, which empowered them to set an annual fine on such as kept inns or alehouses, throughout England. Without a licence from the patentees, no man could hold either: and whoever would not readily pay the sum, at which those low instruments of power thought fit to excise him, was sure of being harassed and plundered, or thrown into a jail. This proved a fruitful source of vexations, and fell heavy on the on the poorer sort. The third was yet more enormous; a patent for the sole making and vending of gold and silver lace, which had been granted to two infamous tools of the favourite, Mompesson and Michel; the Dudley and Empson of that age. The first a man of fortune, whose sole ambition was to make himself considered, though but by his crimes: the other an obscure justice of the peace, who, in a remote quarter of the town, picked up a sordid maintenance from the stews. They had, it seems, shamefully abused the power their exclusive patent gave them, by putting off, for true, great quantities of counterfeit lace, wrought up and embased with copper, or rather materials of a poisonous nature: and whoever presumed

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to make or sell any other, was cruelly punished, by fine and imprisonment. In these outrages they were the more daring, because Sir Edward Villiers, half- Hacket, brother to the favourite, was associated into their Wilson. patent, though not named in it. These, with many other grievances, were laid open in parliament, and severely censured. But the commons did not stop here. They were for carrying their search up to the prime cause of all grievances, in order to discover by whose influence the several patents had been procured, and how they had passed the seals. Complaints were brought into the house, about the same time, of corrupt practices even in the high court of equity. This alarmed the king for his chancellor, and still more for his minion: as private intimation had been sent to Buckingham, of a severe scrutiny Cabala, that was making into all his management, and of Letter II. frequent meetings that were held, with great secrecy, by certain members of the lower house; in order to fix on him the guilt of whatever was most unjustifiable and oppressive. Buckingham's creatures, anxious and alarmed at this intelligence, persuaded him that he could secure impunity to himself and them, only by bringing his master forthwith to dissolve the parliament: and James had certainly been frightened into that rash and hazardous step, but for the sober remonstrances of Williams, dean of Westminster. That politic courtier advised him to cancel at once, by proclamation, all monopolies and vexatious grants; to sacrifice inferior criminals to the public resentment, and to soothe the parliament with an assurance that this reformation was first proposed by his favourite, on finding how much he had been abused by designing and knavish projectors. This counsel the king resolved to follow; but it did not wholly free him from the perplexity he was under. The chancellor, whom his interest led him to preserve, was openly accused of corruption: the favourite, whom his tenderness could not resign, was secretly, and therefore more dangerously attacked; as the encourager, if not the author, of whatever was deemed