To this motive, probably, we are to ascribe that profusion of titles which was observed in the beginning of his reign; when, in six weeks' time after his entrance into the kingdom, he is computed to have bestowed knighthood on no less than two hundred and thirty-seven persons.

If Elizabeth's frugality of honors, as well as of money, had formerly been repined at, it began now to be valued and esteemed, and every one was sensible that the king, by his lavish and premature conferring of favors, had failed of obliging the persons on whom he bestowed them.

Titles of all kinds became so common, that they were scarcely marks of distinction; and being distributed, without choice or deliberation, to persons unknown to the prince, were regarded more as the proofs of facility and good nature, than of any determined friendship or esteem.
A pasquinade was affixed to St.Paul's, in which an art was promised to be taught, very necessary to assist frail memories in retaining the names of the new nobility.[*] We may presume that the English would have thrown less blame on the king's facility in bestowing favors, had these been confined entirely to their own nation, and had not been shared out, in too unequal proportions, to his old subjects.

James, who, through his whole reign, was more guided by temper and inclination than by the rules of political prudence, had brought with him great numbers of his Scottish courtiers, whose impatience and importunity were apt, in many particulars, to impose on the easy nature of their master, and extort favors of which, it is natural to imagine, his English subjects would loudly complain.
The duke of Lenox, the earl of Marre, Lord Hume, Lord Kinloss, Sir George Hume, Secretary Elphinstone,[**] were immediately added to the English privy council.

Sir George Hume, whom he created earl of Dunbar, was his declared favorite as long as that nobleman lived, and was one of the wisest and most virtuous, though the least powerful, of all those whom the king ever honored with that distinction.