Who seem'd as sent from ugly fate,
To spoyle the prince, and rob the state.
Owning a mind of dismall endes,

As trappes for foes, and tricks for friends.
But now in Hatfield lyes the fox,

Who stank while he liv'd, and died of the -.

It may be judged by these, how future
chronicles agree with common fame, which,
in my opinion, ought not to be rejected, if
not chiefly relied upon. Those that follow
came from so smart a penne in the king's
sense, that he sayd, he hoped the author
would dye before him; who it was God
knowes :

Here lies Hobinall, our pastor while here,
That once in a quarter our fleeces did sheare.
To please us, his curre he kept under clog,
And was ever after both shepherd and dog.'
For oblation to Pan his custome was thus,
He first gave a trifle, then offer'd up us:
And through his false worship such power he did
gaine,

As kept him o' th' mountaine, and us on the plaine;
Where many a horn-pipe he tun'd to his Phyllis,
And sweetly sung Walsingham to's Amaryllis.

1i. e. King and Minister.

2

Walsingham was the name of a popular tune. In

Till Atropos clapt him, a pox on the drab,
For (spight of his tarbox) he died of the scab.

It is possible posterity may find a key to these verses; if not, the losse is not much: however, it will not be uneasy for her to make one able to serve their turne that never knew the right.

How many so ever his faults were, he was of an incomparable prudence, and coming so neere after such an unadvised scatterer as King James, he might have feathered his family better then he did, but that he looked upon low things with contempt, leaving much to the gleaning of his servants, of which many came after into high places. Nor may that be improperly applied to him, which is, in another case, said of Gregory the Great, that he was the first ill treasurer, and the last good,

an old play, to which we have mislaid the reference, mention is made of a "cobler teaching black-birds to whistle Walsingham." But the Earl of Salisbury's favourite mistress was also named Walsingham; and hence the pun so much admired by James and by Osborne.

since Queene Elizabeth's daies: He not standing charged with any grosser bribery or corruption then what lay inclusive under the ceremony of new-yeares gifts, or his owne or servants sharing with such as by importunity rather then merit had obtained debentures out of the Exchequer; which, through these courses, came at last to be so farre exhausted, as it was not able to feed the privy purse, and beare the necessary charges of the houshold: And this put him upon an improvement of the customes, to the great discouragement of marchants; no lesse then the project of baronets, intended at first for a meere cheat, (as a person of honour and no stranger to Cecill did protest,) had not the great concourse that crouded after this title (rendered infamous by the base consideration of mony inserted in their patent) kept it in repute : There having been a motion made, if not a bill put into the last parliament of James against it: No more being by the primitive institution to be admitted then two

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hundred, and they so qualified as were hard to be found, and so the likelier to be laught out of it after their mony paid, which was all the treasurer desired; who did not by it intend to put any affront upon the knights batchelors, as was supposed, and he in some disdaine questioned for it. But the sale of crowne-timber appeared of sadest consequence to the safety of the nation, in relation to the navy, the walls of the kingdome: English oake being then esteemed of as the best for a sea-fight, not being apt to cleave upon the receit of a shot, but rather boare: and of these millions were felled and sold at vile prizes, not only during the life of the Earle of Salisbury, but all the raigne of King James.

30. Now, though there did no degrees of comparison appeare in the wills of those northern adjectives, not able to subsist without England, who, like their ancestors, did exchange a wildernesse for a Canaan; yet much more mischiefe resided in the power of some then others; amongst whom, now

fresh in my memory, are the Lords Roxborrow,' Fenton, Carlile,' and Dunbar,

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that during the reigne of this king lay sucking at the brests of the state, nor were some of them weaned long after his death; the last of which, swallowed at one gulp, together with the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, all the standing wardrobe, wherein were more jewels, pearle, rich robes, and princely apparell, then ever any king of Scotland (if all of them put together) could

'Sir Robert Kerr, Earl of Roxburgh, &c. was a favourite of King James, from whom he had many valuable grants. He was the last male heir of the ancient family of Cessford.

* Not Sir Geoffrey Fenton, privy-counsellor to Elizabeth and James, who was a native of Nottinghamshire, but Thomas Erskine, created Viscount Fenton in 1606, and afterwards Earl of Kelly.

3 James Hay, Earl of Carlisle, afterwards mentioned with yet greater severity, both by Osborne and Pey

ton.

Sir George Home, a younger son of the family of Manderston, raised by James VI. to the dignity of Earl of Dunbar, which his talents and abilities very well deserved. He was long James's Scottish minister, and certainly the most able whom he ever employed in that capacity after his English accession.

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