[25] In 1603, when the king heard, at Hampton-Court, the bishops’ dispute against Dr Reynolds, Dr Sparks, Mr Knewstubs, and Mr Chadderton, James, infinitely better skilled in the subtleties of polemical divinity, than in the arts of ruling a great kingdom, threw his influence into the scale of episcopacy with such ingenuity, that even the pious Whitegift, then primate of England, did not hesitate to avow his persuasion, that “the king spoke by the very spirit of God.” It was therefore no wonder, that Dr Thomas Sparks, although so learned as to be called the Pillar of Puritanism, and so zealous a despiser of forms, as to appear in a Turkey merchant’s gown at the conference, instead of canonicals, should be so melted and overcome by the king’s eloquence and argument, as to become, in future, a strict conformist. He died in 1616, after having experienced the favour of James, which indeed was due to a proselyte of his own making. Sparks wrote several tracts in favour of the establishment; as, “A Brotherly persuasion to Unity and Uniformity,” &c. [26] Robert Bellarmine, one of the most able controversialists whom the church of Rome has produced, and whose very name became a sort of war-cry of polemical divinity. He was born at Monte Pulciano, in 1542, and entered, in 1560, the order of Jesuits, of which he soon became a distinguished ornament. In the year 1599, he was honoured with a cardinal’s hat, but not till he had carried the principle of “Nolo Episcopari” so far, that the pope was obliged to threaten an anathema, should he persist in declining the proffered honour. Bellarmine died 17th September, 1621, leaving behind him sundry huge volumes of polemical divinity. [27] See similar arguments for fixing the same principles of disregard to civil authority upon the Catholics and the Puritans, in the preface to “Religio Laici,” Vol. X. p. 18. Our author little foresaw his near approaching conversion to the faith of Rome. [28] Queen Elizabeth was very much startled by these and other similar reasons which John Knox assigned to persuade the nobility to depose the queen-regent, Mary of Lorraine; and the reformer was obliged to humble himself before he could obtain her forgiveness for broaching doctrines so deeply fraught with danger to monarchy. [29] Dryden alludes to the conspiracy of Amboise, in 1559, by which, the Huguenots, under direction of the Prince of Conde and Coligni, meditated to surprise the court, possess themselves of the person of the king, and drive from his councils the family of Guise. It was dissipated by the policy of Catherine of Medicis and the bravery of the Duke of Guise. [30] This passage affords Tom Brown grounds for a flat sneer at our author. See Vol. X. p. 267. The “Advices to a Painter,” to which Dryden alludes, were a series to satires upon Charles II. and his court, published under the name of Denham, but, which in reality, were written by Andrew Marvell. They are printed in the State Poems.