The internal as well as the external application of sea water, is, more often than otherwise, necessary, where the latter has

1624.

But, to proceed, the treaty with Spain being like to come to a rupture, it was judged necessary to counterballance the power of that king by negotiating a match with the Princesse Henrietta Maria, the youngest daughter of France-first set on foot by the mediation of the Earl of Holland, who found that court inclinable thereunto, and afterwards concluded at the coming over of the Earl of Carlile, joyned in commission to that purpose. It was reported, that when she was told that the Prince of Wales had been at the court, and was gone for Spain, she answered, that" if he went to Spain for a wife, he might have had one nearer hand, and saved himself a great part of the trouble." And I have read, that receiving at one time two letters from England, the one from king James, and the other from the princeshe put that from king James into her cabinet, and that from prince Charles into her bosom. Of which, king James being told, he was exceedingly pleased with it, saying "that he took it for a very good omen, that she should preserve his name in her memory, and lodge Charles in her heart."

1625.

During these preparations for war and marriage, king James departed this life, at Theobalds,

on Sunday, the twenty-seventh of March, anno 1625. Immediately upon whose death prince Charles was proclaimed at the court-gates, to be King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, &c. The like done presently after at London, and by degrees in all the other cities and towns of the kingdom, with infinite rejoycings and acclamations of the people.

The funeral of the deceased king was celebrated on the seventh of May, his body being brought from Somerset-house, with great magnificence, to Saint Peter's church, in Westminster, where he was interred, the king himself being principall mourner; which, though it were contrary to the custome of his predecessours, yet he chose rather to expresse his piety in attending the dead body of his father to the funeral pile, than to stand upon any such old niceties and points of state.

The funeral being past, he thought it was time for him to quicken the coming over of his dearest consort, to whom he had been married on the Sunday before, at the church of NostreDame, in Paris; the Duke of Chevereux, a prince of the house of Guise (from which house king Charles derived himself, by the lady, Mary of Lorain, wife to James the fifth) espousing the princess in his name.

On Trinity Sunday, late at

night, she was brought by a royall fleet of ships, from Bulloign to Dover; which being signified to the king, who was then at Canterbury, he went to her betimes the next morning, and received her with great expressions of affection, professing that he. would be no longer master of himself, than whilest he was servant to her. The same day he brought her to Canterbury, where he gave himself up to those embraces to which, from that time, he confined himself with such a conjugal chastity, that, on the day before his death, he commanded his daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, to tell her mother," that his thoughts had never strayed from her, and that his love should be the same to the last."

On the Thursday after, being the sixteenth of June, they came from Gravesend to White-hall in their royall barges, attended with an infinite number of lords, ladies, and other people who could get boats to wait upon them the ordnance from the ships which were then preparing for the wars, those from the merchants' ships, and the tower of London, thundering their welcomes as she past.

But in the heat of these solemnities and entertainments, the king forgot not the main concernments of himself and the kingdom; and to that end, began his first parliament, on Saturday, the eighteenth of June, which fell out not unseasonably, that the French lords might see with what royall magnificence he was attended by the peers, prelates, and other officers of state (besides his own domestick servants) to the parliament-house.

At their first meeting, he put them in mind of the war in which they had ingaged his father, and of the promise they had made to stand to him in it with their lives and fortunes; that both his land and sea forces were now in rea

diness to set forwards; and that there wanted nothing but a present supply of money to quicken and expedite the affair. In answer whereunto, the commons past a bill of two subsidies onely, so short of the excessive charge which the maintenance of so great a fleet and army required at their hands, that being distributed amongst the officers, soldiers, and mariners, it would scarce have served for advancemoney to send them going; which, notwithstanding, the king very graciously accepted of it, taking it as an ernest of their good affections, in reference to the greater summes which were to follow.

But the plague growing hot in London, the parliament, on the eleventh day of July, was adjourned to Oxford, there to be held on the first of August, at which time the king put them in mind again of the necessity of setting forward his fleet, and that the eyes of his confederates were fixt upon it. But the commons had other fish to fry, and began to quarrel at the greatnesse of the Duke of Buckingham, whom, in the last parliament of king James, they had idolized above all men living. But he had served their turn already, and now they meant to serve their own.

This was the first assault which the commons made upon this king, though not directly on his person, wounding him through the sides of his principal minister.

They were so well verst in the arts of a parliamentary war, as to take in the out-works first, that so the fort itself might lie the more open to continuall batteries concerning which, and the sad consequents thereof, take here the words of a letter written to the king from an unknown person.

These men" saith he, "either cannot or will not remember, that never any nobleman in favour with his soveraign, was questioned in parliament, except by the king himself in case of treason, unlesse it were in the nonage and tumultuous time of Richard II. Henry VI. or Edward VI. which hapned to the destruction both of the king and kingdome. And that, not to exceed our own and fathers' memories, in king Henry the eight's time, Wolsy's exorbitant power and pride, and Cromwel's contempt of the nobility and the lawes, were not yet permitted to be discussed in parliament, though they were most odious and grievous to all the kingdome. And that Leicester's undeserved favour and faults; Hatton's insufficiency, and Rawleigh's insolence, far exceeded what yet hath been (though most falsly) objected against the duke; yet no lawyer durst abet, nor any man else begin any invectives against them in parliament." And then he addes (some other passages intervening) that it behoves his majesty to uphold the duke against them, who, if he be but decourted, it will be the cornerstone on which the demolishing of his monarchy will be builded. For, if they prevaile with this, they have hatched a thousand other demands to pull the fea

thers of the royalty; they will appoint him counsellours, servants, alliances, limits of his expences, accompts of his revenue, chiefly, if they can (as they mainly desire), they will now dazle him in the beginning of his reign."

How true a prophet this man proved, the event hath shewn, and the king saw it well enough; and, therefore, since he could not divert them from that pursuit, he dissolved the parliament, by whose neglect (I will not call it a perversenesse) the fleet went out late, and returned unprosperously. In which conjecture, if he had clapt up a peace with Spain (which the Spaniards had as much reason to accept as he to offer), he might have prevented the following rupture betwixt him and France, and freed himself from the necessity of calling parliaments, till he had no necessity for a parliament to work upon, and then he might have found them as pliant to him as he could reasonably require. But he resolves to try his fortune in another as soon as he had performed the solemnities of his coronation, which w is celebrated on the second of February (commonly called Candlemas day), then next ensuing; in the external pomp whereof, he omitted his triumphant riding through the city, from the Tower to White-hall, the charge whereof would have stood him in sixty thousand pounds, as some compute it; and he had then more necessary occasions to expend his money, than money to answer those occasions. In the sacred part of it, there was nothing altered, but the adding of a clause to one of the prayers which had been pretermitted since the time

of king Henry the sixth, and is this that followeth, viz." Let him obtain favour for the people, like Aaron in the tabernacle, Elisha in the water, Zacharias in the temple-give him Peter's key of discipline-Paul's doctrine." Which clause had been omitted in time of popery, as intimating more ecclesiastical jurisdiction to be given to our kings than the popes allowed of; and for the same reason was now quarrel'd by the Puritan faction. As for the coronation-oath, it was the same which had been taken by his predecessors, as appears by the records of Exchequer not made more advantageous to the king, and lesse beneficial to the people by the late archbishop, though, both the long parliament in the year 1642, and the lewd

:

pamphlets of that time did object the contrary.

The coronation being passed over, he began his second parliament on the sixth of the same month, in which he sped no better than he did in his first The commons voted some subsidies to be granted to him, but they never past them into an act-that bait being onely laid before him, to tempt him to give over the duke to their pride and fury, against whom they had framed a large impeachment, ushered in by Sir Dudley Diggs, prosecuted with six bitter invectives, made by the best speakers and most learned lawyers of that house, and finally concluded by Sir John Eliot, who brought up the rear.

(To be continued.)

VINDICATION OF FEMALE SUPERIORITY.

I am a passionate admirer of the fair sex, but whenever I happen to fall into their company, (whether it proceeds from that modest bashfulness, for which I am very remarkable, or a diffidence of my ability to please) the deuce of any thing can I say: hence they conclude that I am either a stupid blockhead, or my heart is not susceptible of those charms so peculiar to them. That these suppositions are groundless, I hope the following thoughts will evince; for, in fact, they have no greater friend than I am; none more devoted to them; none more sensible of those divine graces so conspicuous-so inherent in their nature: and so far from entertaining

mean and despicable notions of the:n, I shall fairly prove to every unprejudiced mind, that woman is of a more excellent nature than man. The excellence of the female sex above that of men, may, to some sparks, seem an extravagant paradox:-"What!" say they, "that toy, a woman, the most contemptible creature in the universe-is she the most excellent? One made from the dross and refuse of man! the bane of empire! cause of all our mischief! the fountain of all human frailty!

wretches, who, after they had fawned like a spaniel, at the feet of some deserving woman, were, for their unworthiness, discarded by her. But men of more sense and better manners must give a very different character: for, oh, woman! lovely woman! angels are painted fair to look like you. There is in you all that we believe of heaven! amazing brightness, purity, and truth! eternal joy, and everlasting love! But let us proceed to the proof of what we advance :-first, the original name of the fair sex denotes a greater excellence than that of men; for our great Creator undoubtedly understood very well the nature of what he made before he named it, and, in consequence, would not be guilty of an impropriety of giving a name which should not signify the property and nature of the thing named. Now Adam signifies no more than earth, but Eve signifies life, as if man lived only by woman, and was but a dead and insipid lump without her. And it is the testimony of God himself, that it was not good for man to be alone" I will, therefore," saith he, "make him an helpmate" the Hebrew has it, a help before him, that is, more excellent than him. If, therefore, the name given by God himself signifies the thing to be more excellent, who can dispute but that the thing is so too? In the next place, the method that God observed in the creation, plainly shews woman to be the most excellent of created beings; which method of proceeding was from the less to the more noble beings-namely, from the mineral to the vegetable, from thence

to the animal kingdoms; all of which being finished, he made man, and last of all woman, in which all the creation was perfected, and all its beauty complete. God having made woman, ended his work, she containing so noble an epitome of the Creator's wisdom and power, and without whom the world, as glorious and exact as its formation was, had been imperfect. Furthermore, woman excelled man in the very matter of which she was made, not being formed out of an inanimate lump of clay, as man was, but out of an animal and purified matter, exalted by the participation of an immortal soul. For as a chymist, out of a rude lump, extracts a fine spirit which contains the quintessence of the whole, and if this spirit is again rectified, a pure and more excellent is then attained so God made man, out of a rude mass of earth, an excellent creature, and when he had endued him with a rational and immortal spirit, then he made woman out of him entire and perfect in all her parts, like the second rectification of the spirit, so that it is plain beyond contradiction, that woman is of a more excellent nature than man; nay, the very curse that God laid up

on

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woman, shews plainly that she was the superior being before the fall-thy desire shall be subject to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Now, where had been the curse, if she had been subject to her husband before? Perhaps, some will conclude from this, that though woman was superior to us before the fall, yet ever since we are superior to her; but this error is