JESSR 1 S MEMOIRS OF THE COURT UNDER TILE STUARTS. IIUME has

remarked upon JAMES the First, that the factions which originated in his reign, surviving to the present day, have made his character as.much disputed atnengst us as that of a contemporary.

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fexVii-ilitis int e—rest springs „from a. higher- eireumstanee .than ;the mere ;origin of Whig toad- Tory— • The opposition to Court-will, whichlended in the Great Rebellion,is the most eventful occurrence in English history ; having greater results than the Conquest by WILLIAM or the accession of the Tenoas. Without the anix- iiireof.iNTorman blood, we _might have been a more German and less- enterprising people : but for the policy and power of Iitavax the Seventh, of his son, and of his granddaughter ELIZABETH, a more .feudal character might have prevailed in our government : but MS would probably have been all. The resistance to the pedantic tyranny of the STUARTS, not only produced our present constitution and realized English liberty, but actually preserved liberty itself'. Without endeavouring to apportion the balance of faults between CHARLES and his Parliament, the merest bigot, we fancy, will admit that the most disastrous effects must have flowed from his triumph in arms. With the nation at his feet, the ablest of the Country party destroyed, a licentious army behind him, and the power to carry out his grand purpose of governing by prerogative i without Parliament or restraining laws, it s scarcely assuming too much to assert that the progression of Europe and the existence of America would have been checked, if not stopped. Be this as it may, the discussions spoken of by Hume as so fre- quent in his own time, have been continued to the present day,Ivith a vast accession of public and private documents to serve as texts. So that there is no period of history that has been so fully investi- gated, or respecting which so much contemporary evidence exists, as from. the accession of JAMES the First to the Revolution. To produce any thing new, or even any thing useful, on a subject so worn, would appear exceedingly difficult : Mr. JESSE, however, has achieved the latter, although his capacity is by no means of the first-rate.

Both the useful and the entertaining character of the work, (for it is very entertaining,) consist in its giving an account of matters below the dignity of history, or a fuller notice of persons than history permits. In form it is a portrait-gallery : its essential elm- racteristies are anecdote, personal peculiarities, gossip, and scandal; its subjects are King jAMES and King CHARLES, the rest of the Royal Family, and the most distinguished ministers, courtiers, and court ladies of the time.

The plan of the author is to give, not a biography, but a bio- graphical notice of each person. By this means he is enabled to confine himself to what is curious, attractive, and readable ; omitting those events which are mentioned in general history, or those particulars that would flatten or encumber his narrative. In accomplishing this, he may overdo or uuderdo, putting in matters which some may deem trivial, leaving out things held essential by others ; but he produces a pleasant work, containing a good deal of information respecting the private lives and personal peculiari- ties of people of whom the reader of history desires to know some- thing, without well knowing where to get it. To research, indeed, he has no claim ; and those who are read in publications treating of the time, even without being familiar with their original autho- rities, will not find much novelty in Mr. Jesse. His merit consists in having brought together with sufficient literary skill some of the most striking passages of a great many volumes.

At this point praise must end. Mr. JESSE has little critical acumen, and is by no means a severe caterer ; for example, he re- peats at full length, and with great solemnity, the somewhat hack- nied story of the apparitions of BUCKINGHAM'S father before the Duke's assassination by FELTON. Whenever he deviates into his- tory he shows himself unequal to his theme; and his politics are not so much Tory as servile. In a lord of the right sort, he can see no more faults than the lord's chaplain could discover when alive ; but if he has to deal with royalty, he seems to put oft' the common faculties of manhood as deftly as the Universities of yore. Of BUCKINGHAM, a man whose licentiousness was both gross and notorious, he says' that " in all probability he was not immaculate." The lord-loving Scorr treats his immorality as indisputable in his Fortunes of Nigel ; and a much better authority than Seorr, the courtly Bishop GOODMAN, a follower of Ituceisonsm, admits his " wantonness. As a specimen of Mr. JESSE'S servility to royalty, and of his moral sense, the following instance may suffice. " Had Mont gomeq contented himself with being a profligate, a gambler, a fool, or a coward—had he been satisfied with tyrannizing over his wife, or with cudgelling, or being cudgelled—he would have avoida. in a great degree the contempt and obloquy with which his name has been burdened. But when we find hint turning rebel, and becoming an ungrateful apostate to the Prince who had raised hint, words are scarcely sufficient to express our indig,uation and contempt." There is an inaccuracy here. CHARLES the First did not "raise" MONTGOMERY; he only gave him an office about his person. JAMES created him Earl of MONTGOMERY ; a useless title as it turned out, f'or he became Earl of PEMBROKE on the death of his brother.

The fullest notices in the volumes are those of JAMES'S favourites SOMERSET and BUCKINGHAM, and, with the Queens and children of the two monarchs, will be the most attractive front their histori- cal celebrity. As a pleasing anecdote of a royal infant, and a spe- cimen of the advantage of Mr. JESSE'S plan, we will quote the entire notice of ANNE DAucurrtn OF CHARLES THE team Mr. Garrard writes to the Earl of Strafford, on the 23a of March 1636, " Friday morning, the 17th of this month, St. Patrick's dam; was the Queen brought to bed of a daughter, which will please the Irish well. It is not vet christened, neither hear I any thing of the gossips." There is a simple bat affecting anecdote relatsd of this little Princess, who died before she bad com- pleted her fourth year. In her last moments she was desired brone dimes attendants to pray. She said she was not able to say her long prayer, meaning the Lord's Prayer, but would say her short one ; "-Lighten mute eyes; 0 Lord; that I sleep not the sleep of death." She . had scarcely: repeated: Vie sear4s when life departed. She was born at St. James's, 17th March 1637, and cliod 8th December 1640.

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- Here is an example of Danish refinement and JAMES'S jovialthe§. " Wine was always palatable to James. It was therefore not unnatural that the visit of his jovial brother-in-law should have led to more than One

scene of inebriety. The Danish monarch, indeed, seems to have been some-

what famous for disordering his faculties with the juice of the grape. Bowel tells us of an instance of his excess, which occurred wizen, some years after- wards, this author accompanied the Earl of Leicester on his embassy to Den- mark. The Earl was invited to dinner by the Dane, who did the best in his !lower to make the ambassador drunk. They sat down to their meal at eleven o'clock, and continued drinking till the evening, during which period the King proposed thirty-five healths—first the Emperor, then the King of England, and se on, till he had exhausted all the Kings and Queens in Christendom. The consequence was that his Majesty was eventually carried off in his chair. The same considerate attention was offered by two of guards to the ambassador; who, however, was fortunately able to reach his Chamber without their as- sistance.

" Payton mentions a remarkable debauch which occurred during the visit of the King of Denmark at the English court, on which occasion the WO Kings &mt intoxicated. James was in such a disgraceful state that he wet obliged to he carried to bed by his courtiers—a task Which was performed with considerable difficulty. ' The King of Denmark,' he says, ' was so disguised; as he would have lain with the Countess of Nottingham, making horns in de- rision at her husband, the High Admiral of England.' " It was with reason that SHARSPERE makes the Danes addicted to drinking—not, perhaps, as JOHNSON alleges against VOLTALREi to make an usurper despicable as well as odious, but because he knew that such was the custom of Denmark.

A PRIEST-RIDDEN QUEEN.

The insufferable insolence of these people (Heurietta's French attendants)

is scarcely to be conceived. Nothing could be more degrading than that

Queen of England should have been compelled by a foreign priesthood to w.

barefooted to Tylporn ; and that not merely in the common exercise of her

faith, but to glorify the memory of the detestable contrivers of the Gunpawder,

Conspiracy. But it appears by a letter of the period that the indignity did not stop here. " Had they not also," says a writer of the time, " made her dabble in the dirt in a foul morning fromi Somerset House to St. James's, her Luciferiao confessor riding along by her in his coach Yea, they made her to go barefoot, to spin, to cat her meat out of tryne (wooden) dishes, to wait at the table and serve her servants, with many other ridiculous and absurd penances." The priests, French as well as English, had flocked in such numbers to the Queen's private apartments, as to cause the greatest disquietude to Charles:, He told them on one occasion that he had already granted than so muah liberty in public, that be had at least a right to expect exemption from dos mestie intrusion. But the following is the most remarkable instance of priestly. interference. The King and Queen were banqueting in public ; and, as usual,, the chaplain was proceeding to say grace, when the Queen's confessor actually struck up with a .Latin benediction. The King's chaplain, (of course a Pro- testant,) naturally provoked at the interruption, gave the confessor a zealous push, and. then continued time grace. On this the latter wait over to the Queen's side, and commenced with renewed energy his benediction. The King, however,"very sensibly cut the matter short by drawing one of the dishes to- wards him, when the carvers instantly began their office. As soon as dinner was over, the confessor proceeded in like manner to return thanks ; the chap, lain, however, had obtained the start, when each endeavoured to drown the other by the loudness of his voice. Charles very properly took the Queeu,hy

the hand, and hastily withdrew her from the disgraceful scene. •

One of the most curious, and in its close mysterious, passages in, the English annals, is the rise and fall of SOMERSET, and the mur- der of Sir THOMAS OVERBURY, because, according to the received opinion, OVERBURY had advised his patron not to marry the licen- tious Countess of ESSEX. Tragedies have been written upon it;. and JOHNSON considers it not ill adapted for the stage, had the action been more remote : but we must confess we scarcely see its dramatic capabilities ; the whole story seems too complete a tissue of grossness, lust, and crime, for the purposes of art. The conjec- tures, not new but more developed, of Mr. Jussn as to the real motives for the murder, add depth to the atrocities, but not much to its capabilities for fiction, unless by supplying a stronger motive.

" The murder of Overbury has generally been traced to the sole circum- stance of his having impugned. the virtue cf Lady Somersez. Admitting, how- ever, that female indignation could, proceed to such lengm Its as murder, is it probable that Somerset would have entered so warmly ;I:to his witC's feelings, as to sacrifice for some intemperate expressions a once-lovrd friend, more espe- cially when those very expressions originated solely in a regard fur himself? A. momentary and violent irritation may perhaps 'be allowed as natural; but would he have pursued his victim to the grave by a slow and merciless process. of vengeance, scarcely cqmdled in the annals of crime? Moreover, is it pro- bable, is it indeed possible, that Northampton, whose share in this det..stable transaction is undoubted, and who was one of the coldest and most calculating men of his time, should have been influenced in the same unaccountable lim- ner by his profligate niece ? In a word, will continuum sense allow us to sup- pose tint such a nrm would lure mixed himself up in a fearful crime, and have risked life, fortune, and reputation, merely because some unguarded words hail been uttered, which he well knew to be true?

"To what then, will naturally be asked, did. Overbury owe his melancholy end? This needs an explanation which it is not so easy to aiford, and the most that can be adduced are some obsenre and unsatisilmctorr conjectures. Certain it is, that Overburv was the depository of some import:Mt secrets, the discovery of which might gave been fatal to the favourite, and that he was even foolish enough to threaten Somerset with a disclosure. Many a dark rumour has floated down to us respecting the mysterious death of Prince Henry; in which the names of Somerset, Northampton, and Overbury are not omitted. Undoubtedly it was of the most vital importance, both to Somerset and North- ampton, that the Prince should not survive his father. Preferment was sure to cease. and ruin certain to follow. The abhorrence with which Henry regarded the Suffolk and Northampton branches of the llowards. was scarcely exceeded even by his detestation of Somerset. Besides, the mere fact of these two no-

blemen being capable of committing one murder, renders it less unlikely that

they would -have been guilty of the other. At all events, it appears far mos..: probable that they put Overbury out of the way to insure their own v than to avenge themselves on the detractor of a wife or a niece. The- conduct, too, of the Countess appears less infamous, if we can suppose that to the indignation of her sex she added a redeeming anxiety to rescue-her husband from approaching ruin. With regard to the general circumstances which. threw suspicion over the death of Henry, they Lave already been introduced in the memoir of that lamented young Prince. "Unfortunately, it is impossible to investigate this embarrassing affair without in some degree implicating the King himself. The late Charles Fox entertained a project of inquiring into the circumstances of Somerset's crime: in a letter to Lord Lauderdale he writes—' I recollect that the impression upon my mind was, that there was more reason than is generally allosred for suspecting that Prince Henry was poisoned by Somerset, and that the King knew of it after the fact.' This impression originated, without doubt, in Somer- set's arrogance previous to his trial, as well as in the Ring's undisguised fear lest the Earl should enter into smite unpleasant details when brought before his judges. Certain is it, that Somerset had a secret in his keeping, which apparently saved his own life, and kept James in an unpleasant state of trepi- dation. Whether, however, it was connected with the death of the Prince, or whether, as Harris supposes, it was the revealing that vice to which James seems to have been addicted,' is not so easy to determine. There is a letter extant, addressed by Somerset. to the King, in which he professes to pray for mercy; but it conveys less of penitence than of expostulation and defiance. Somerset throughout affected to talk as if the King dared not sentence him to

death." * * *

" Another circumstance which throws suspicion on James, was the libera- tion of Sir Thomas Monson, who was to have been tried as an accomplice in Overbury's murder, but escaped after his arraignment. Coke, the Lord Chief Justice, was rash enough to observe, 'That more would come out at his trial than the death of a private individual.' He is even said to have exclaimed on the Bench, God knows what became of that sweet babe Prince Henry ; but I know somewhat.' Certain it is that James took fright, that Monson ob- tained his liberty, and that Coke was disgraced."

The more the particulars of this period are examined into, the more disgusting does the Court of JAMES the First and CHARLES the Martyr appear. Fraud, corruption, licentiousness, and blood, is the spectacle presented; without any redeeming features, except a kind of benhenimic in JAMES and a liberal spirit of patronage to the fine arts in CHARLES.