fore any hostile act we read of in the history, king Solomon died in peace, when he had lived about sixty years, as Lyra and Tostatus were of opinion. And so you know did king James.”

The latter part of this extraordinary discourse, where the bishop drops at length the absurd task of comparing point by point "the two Solomons," is less unworthy of the reputation of Williams as a statesman and a man of sense; but nothing can be more scandalous than the spirit in which the following eulogy on the king's justice is conceived: "If we look at home in his own dominions, never were the benches so gravely furnished, never the courts so willingly frequented, never rich and poor so equally righted, never the balance so evenly poized as in the reign of our late sovereign; I could tell you that that will never be believed in later times, of a lord (lord Sanquar) that died for a vile varlet, of a peer condemned for a sorry gentleman; nay, of a dear son (the palatine) left unrelieved for a time against a stranger for fear of swerving the breadth of a hair from the line of justice."

The king's zeal for religion, and more particularly for episcopacy, receives the warmest commendations from the bishop, who concludes this head of his panegyric with the following statements: "He was as great a patron of the maintenance of the church as ever I read of in any history. For, beside his refusal of sede vacantes and that law he enacted at his first entrance for the preservation of the revenue of our churches in England, he might well say with

David for his other kingdoms, The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up; that the endowing of bishoprics, the erecting of colleges, the buying out of impropriations, the assigning of glebes, the repairing of old and the erecting of new churches, hath consumed and taken up all, or the far greater part, of his revenues in Scotland and Ireland."

The wisdom of the king is extolled in terms of the grossest adulation ; but from the following enumeration of the advancement of the various interests of the three kingdoms during his reign, the impartial bistorian will find little to subtract:...." The Scotish feuds quite abolished, the schools of the prophets new adorned, all kind of learning highly improved, manufactures at home daily invented, trading abroad exceedingly multiplied, the borders of Scotland peaceably governed, the north of Ireland religiously planted, the East India well traded, Persia, China and the Mogor visited, lastly, all the ports of Europe, Asia, Africa and America to our red crossed freed and opened. And they are all the actions and true born children of king James his peace."

It is somewhat singular that, in the enumeration of king James's merits with respect to religion, the bishop should have omitted all mention of his care for the completion of a new version of the bible. This great work was undertaken in performance of a promise made by the king at the Hampton-court

Somers Tracts, vol. ii. p. 33. 3rd edit.

conference,

conference, and Dr. Reynolds, the great champion of the puritans, by whom it was there suggested, was one of the divines engaged in its execution. The translators were in number forty-seven; they were divided into six companies, to each of which a portion of the scriptures was assigned. Rules for their proceeding were drawn up by his majesty himself, with great attention and apparently with much prudence. Nearly three years were occupied in the task; and it was not till 1611 that the book appeared in print with a well-merited dedication to the king. This is the authorised version of the present day; and, with some allowances for the subsequent advancement of the science of biblical criticism, it has constantly been regarded by the best judges as a very honorable monument of the learning, skill and diligence of the translators.

The appearance of king James's bible forms also one of the most important events in the history of the English language; it had the immediate effect of recommending to common use a very considerable number of words derived from the learned languages, for which the translators had been unable to find equivalents in the current English of the time. At present it performs a service of an opposite nature, and keeps in use, or at least in remembrance, many valuable words and expressive idioms which would otherwise have been rejected with disdain by the fastidiousness of modern taste, as homely and familiar.

Some attempts have been made by the eulogists

of

of James I. to affix to his name the epithet of The Just; but impartial posterity has refused to confirm an addition so glorious: Justice is the virtue of great minds, and the praise of general good intention is the utmost that can be conceded to a prince so habitually swayed by fear, by prejudice and by private affections.

INDEX.