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agree that he was the author of them

be, it is remarkable they have been little read, and are seldom or ever quoted on the subject of episcopacy. I have turned over Stillingfleet's Irenicum, and his Unreasonableness of Separation, in which church-government is at large discussed; I have looked into Hoadley's Defence of Episcopal Ordination, and many other volumes; but can find him seldom or ever named. So that, it is possible, these learned churchmen had not so great an opinion of the arguments made use of by Charles in these papers, as the his torians I have quoted.

Charles is celebrated by his panegyrists for his devotion, as we have already seen; and to convince the world of the truth and reality of it, the editor of his works has given us a collection of "Prayers used by his majesty in the time of his troubles and restraint”.” But this title does not suit several of them. The first being "a prayer used by his majesty, at his entrance jn state into the cathedral church of Excester, after the defeat of the earl of Essex in Cornwall." The second is styled "a prayer drawn by his majesty's special direction and dictates, for a blessing on the treaty at Uxbridge." The third is "a prayer drawn by his ma jesty's special directions, for a blessing on the treaty at Newport in the Isle of Wight." A fourth is " a prayer for the pardon of sin." The fifth is "a prayer and confession in and for the times of affliction." In this there are these very remarkable expressions: "Of all men living, I have most need, most reason so to do, [to confess his sins] no man living having been so much obliged by thee; that degree of knowledge which thou hast given me, adding likewise to the guilt of my transgressions. For was it through ignorance that I

• King Charles's Works, p. 93,

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The prayers may be his, though his friends

suffered innocent blood to be shed, by a false pretended way of justice? or that I permitted a wrong way of thy worship to be set up in Scotland, and injured the bishops in England? O no; but with shame and grief I confess, that I therein followed the persuasions of worldly wisdom, forsaking the dictates of a wellinformed conscience."-But to go on: the sixth prayer is styled "a prayer in time of captivity;" and the seventh "a prayer in time of imminent danger."— The "prayer in time of captivity," is too remarkable to be slightly passed over. It was printed at the end of some editions of Icon Basilike, among other prayers of Charles's, and by the quick-sighted Milton (who was well versed in romances) was found to be taken from the prayer of Pamela, in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia. Hear his words. "In praying therefore, and in the outward work of devotion, this king we see had not at all exceeded the worst of kings before him. But herein the worst of kings, professing Christianism, have by far exceeded him. They, for aught we know, have still prayed their own, or at least borrowed from fit authors. But this king not content with that which, although in a thing holy, is no holy theft, to attribute to his own making other men's whole prayers, hath as it were unhallowed and unchristened the very duty of prayer itself, by borrowing to a Christian use prayers offered to a heathen god. Who would have imagined so little fear in him of the true all-seeing Deity; so little reverence of the Holy Ghost, whose office is to dictate and present our Christian prayers; so little care of truth in his last words, or honour to himself or to his friends, or sense of his afflictions, or of that sad hour which was upon him, as, immediately

King Charles's Works, p. 94.

would, many of them, have been glad

before his death, to pop into the hand of that grave bishop who attended him, as a special relique of his saintly exercises, a prayer, stolen word for word from the mouth of a heathen woman, praying to a heathen god; and that in no serious book, but in the vain amatorious poem of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia; a book in that kind full of worth and wit, but among religious thoughts and duties not worthy to be named; nor to be read at any time without good caution, much less in time of trouble and affliction, to be a Christian's prayer-book? It hardly can be thought upon without some laughter, that he who had acted over us so stately and so tragically, should leave the world at last with such a ridiculous exit, as to bequeath among his deifying friends that stood about him, such a piece of mockery to be published by them, as must needs cover both his and their heads with shame and confusion. And sure it was the hand of God that let them fall, and be taken in such a foolish trap, as hath exposed them to all derision, if for nothing else, to throw contempt and disgrace in the sight of all men, upon this his idolized book [Icon Basilike], and the whole rosary of his prayers; thereby testifying how little he accepted them from those who thought no better of the living God than of a buzzard idol, that would be served and worshipped with the polluted trash of romances and Arcadias, without discerning the affront so irreligiously and so boldly offered him to his face"."

In the second edition of Iconoclastes, Milton makes some large additions to his observations on the plagiarism of Charles. They are too long to be here repeated; but what follows I think deserves to be regarded, on account of its great spirit and beauty,

* Milton's Prose Works, vol. I. p. 408.

they had not been so, on account of the

"But leaving," adds he, "what might justly be offensive to God, it was a trespass also more than usual against human right, which commands that every author should have the property of his own work reserved to him after his death, as well as living. Many princes have been rigorous in laying taxes on their subjects by the head; but if any king heretofore, that made a levy upon their wit, and seized it as his own legitimate, I have not whom beside to instance"."

All this may be thought perhaps very severe: but unluckily the thing charged on Charles, the stealing this prayer from the Arcadia, is true, though it has been pretended to be otherwise by some gentlemen. I will quote Wagstaff, whose vindication of king Charles, against Walker and others, is in good esteem with the admirers of this monarch." I know but of one objection more, and that respects a prayer added to some editions of the king's book [Icon Basilike], as used by the king, and said to be taken out of a romance, &c. Now though I know of no manner of harm in this, and the objection is plainly peevish and querulous; for why may not a man use good expressions in his prayers, let them be borrowed from whom they will, as well as a good sentence out of a heathen writer, and which was never any blemish, though on the most pious occasions: yet there is great reason to believe that the king did never make use of it, for that it is not found in the first, nor in several other of the most early editions of this book."-The same writer afterwards adds, "Since the first edition of this vindication, I have received full and convincing

a Second edition, published in 1650, re-published by Baron in 4to. Lond. 1756. p. 10. b Vindication of King Charles the Martyr, 8vo.

P. 50. Lond. 1697.

prayer taken from Sir Philip Sidney's

information, concerning the mystery of this prayer, that it was an artifice of Bradshaw, or Milton, or both, and by them surreptitiously thrust into the king's works, to discredit the whole. This information comes originally from Mr. Hills the printer; but conveyed by two worthy gentlemen, and against whom there can be no possible exception, Dr. Gill and Dr. Bernard, who both were physicians to him, and very intimate with him. What Hills declared, as these gentlemen say, was this: Mr. Dugard, who was Milton's intimate friend, happened to be taken printing an edition of the king's book. Milton used his interest to bring him off, which he effected by the means of Bradshaw; but upon this condition, that Dugard should add Pamela's prayer to the aforesaid books he was printing, as an attonement for his fault, they designing thereby to bring a scandal upon the book, and blast the reputation of its author; pursuant to which design, they industriously took care afterwards, as soon as published, to have it taken notice of."-In reply to this, Toland says, "I wonder at the easiness of Dr. Gill and Dr. Bernard to believe so gross a fable, when it does not appear that Dugard, who was printer to the parliament, ever printed this book; and the prayer is in the second edition, published by Mr. Royston, whose evidence is alledged to prove the genuineness of the book. And if the king's friends thought it not his own, what made them print it in the first impression of his works in folio, by Royston in 1662, when Milton could not tamper with the press? Or why did they let it pass in the last impression in folio by Mr. Chiswell, in the year 86, when all the world knew that it was long before exposed in Iconoclastes?" This seems to have

Wagstaff, p. 51.

Toland's Amyntor, p. 154. 8vo. Lond. 1699.

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