A Child's History of England.175

CHAPTER 32 ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST

'Our cousin of Scotland' was ugly, awkward, and shuffling both in mind and person. His tongue was much too large for his mouth, his legs were much too weak for his body, and his dull goggle[瞪圆]-eyes stared and rolled like an idiot's. He was cunning, covetous [having a very strong desire to have sth that sb else has], wasteful, idle, drunken, greedy, dirty, cowardly, a great swearer [咒骂者], and the most conceited [自负的] man on earth. His figure [身材] - what is commonly called rickety [摇晃的] from his birth - presented a most ridiculous appearance, dressed in thick padded clothes, as a safeguard against being stabbed (of which he lived in continual fear), of a grass-green colour from head to foot, with a hunting-horn dangling at his side instead of a sword, and his hat and feather sticking over one eye, or hanging on the back of his head, as he happened to toss it on. He used to loll [倚着] on the necks of his favourite courtiers, and slobber their faces, and kiss and pinch their cheeks; and the greatest favourite he ever had, used to sign himself in his letters to his royal master, His Majesty's 'dog and slave,' and used to address his majesty as 'his Sowship.' His majesty was the worst rider ever seen, and thought himself the best. He was one of the most impertinent [粗鲁的] talkers (in the broadest Scotch) ever heard, and boasted of being unanswerable [无可辩驳的] in all manner of argument. He wrote some of the most wearisome treatises [专题论文] ever read - among others, a book upon witchcraft, in which he was a devout believer - and thought himself a prodigy [奇才] of authorship. He thought, and wrote, and said, that a king had a right to make and unmake what laws he pleased, and ought to be accountable to nobody on earth. This is the plain, true character of the personage [要人] whom the greatest men about the court praised and flattered to that degree, that I doubt if there be anything much more shameful in the annals [历史记载] of human nature.

toss: throw sth, esp sth light, with a quick gentle movement
slobber: wet or smear with saliva; express sentiment or enthusiasm 非常激动地 or 过分展露感情地

James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death in 1625. The kingdoms of Scotland and England were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciaries, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union.

狄大人的文字……

He came to the English throne with great ease. The miseries of a disputed succession had been felt so long, and so dreadfully, that he was proclaimed within a few hours of Elizabeth's death, and was accepted by the nation, even without being asked to give any pledge that he would govern well, or that he would redress [纠正] crying grievances. He took a month to come from Edinburgh to London; and, by way of exercising [行使] his new power, hanged a pickpocket [扒手] on the journey without any trial, and knighted everybody he could lay hold of. He made two hundred knights before he got to his palace in London, and seven hundred before he had been in it three months. He also shovelled [塞] sixty-two new peers [贵族] into the House of Lords - and there was a pretty large sprinkling of Scotchmen among them, you may believe.