The King's command of this humorous vein, so dear to his people, with its trenchant sketches from the life and somewhat rough jests, is wonderful, when his courtly breeding and long separation even from such knowledge of rustic existence as a prince is likely to obtain is considered. And the many-sided nature which made these humours so familiar and easy to him is a strange discovery in the midst of all the tragic circumstances of his life and reign. The union of the most delicate poetry and romance with that genial whim and fancy is unusual enough: but it is still more unusual to find the stern Justiciar, avenger of blood and redresser of wrong, the reconstructer of a distracted country, capable not only of the broad fun of the rustic ballad-maker, but of so tolerant and humorous a view of the humble commons, the underlying masses upon which society is built. For the first aspect of affairs in Scotland could not be a cheerful one: although it was rather with the nobles and gentlemen, the great proprietors of the country, who had to be summoned to exhibit their charters and prove their titles, partly no doubt with the view of discovering what Crown lands had been alienated by the Albany party, that the King's quarrel was, than with the humbler subjects of the nation. Yet there is no doubt, with all these lights and softening influences of character and genius, that his reign was a stern one. James had everything to reform in the country to which he came with so many new ideas and so enlarged a knowledge of what the internal economy of a nation might be made. It is rather against the general historical estimate of the talents and power of the Regent Albany that the new King should have found, as appears, so much to do for the reorganisation of the commonwealth--regulating the laws, appointing courts of justice, inquiring into the titles of property, and in every other way giving consistency and order to the affairs of Scotland. However, the lavish grants made to the great Scots lords and the licence given them to rule their vassals as they pleased arose not from weakness but from Albany's deliberate policy of securing a strong party on his side, a policy exactly opposed to that of James, whose heart was set on subduing these fierce nobles, and perhaps of developing the people at large, the nation itself, if that is not too modern an ambition. The reign of Law, broken and disturbed by a hundred storms, but still henceforward with a statute-book to fall back upon and some fitful authority at its command, began in Scotland in his day.