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A ROYAL RHETORICIAN

4 Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, His honour and the greatness of his name Shall be, and make new nations : he shall flourish, And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches To all the plains about him.'

King Henry VIIL, Act v. Sc. 5.

A ROYAL RHETORICIAN:

A Treatise on Scottis Poesie

A Counterblaste to Tobacco

etc. etc.

BY KING JAMES VI. AND I.

Edited, with an Introduction, BY ROBERT S. RAIT,

FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD

WESTMINSTER

A. CONSTABLE AND CO.

1 900

Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION ....... ix

ANE SCHORT TREATISE ON SCOTTIS POESIE . . I

A COUNTERBLASTS TO TOBACCO 2Q

NOTES 55

EXTRACTS FROM ' ESSAYES OF A TRENTISE, IN

THE DIVINE ART OF POESIE ' 6 1 EXTRACTS FROM 'THE PSALMS OF KING DAVID

TRANSLATED BY KING JAMES5 • • • 79

LIST OF KING JAMES'S CHIEF WRITINGS . . 85

221568

INTRODUCTION

'YOUR Inheritance consists as much in the workes of your Father's Royall Vertues, as in the wealth of his mighty Kingdomes.' So wrote the courtier Bishop of Winchester in his * Epistle Dedicatorie to the Thrice Illustrious and most Excellent Prince, Charles, the Onely Sonne of Our Soveraigne Lord the King' — an epistle prefixed to the Bishop's edition of King James's Works, published in 1616. The goodly folio1 volume of some six hundred pages may have seemed to the prelate and his master to justify the compliment, or the sentence may have served for taking up the wager of battle against those who held that writing became not the majesty of a king, and to whose confutation the editor devoted a * Preface/ wherein he appealed to * the King of Kings, God

1 The works contained in the folio edition had been fre- quently printed ; some of them under various titles. (Cf. The British Museum Catalogue. ) Several speeches, delivered after the publication of the folio of 1616, were separately published. They have reference to incidents in the political history of the reign, and scarcely come within our province.

x INTRODUCTION

Himselfe, who, as he doth all things for our good ; so doeth he many things for our Imitation. It pleased his Divine wisdome to bee the first in this Rancke, that we read of, that did ever write. Hee wrote, and the writing was the writing, saith Moses, of God.'

We have fallen heirs to this portion of Prince Charles's inheritance ; but it can scarcely be said that any generation, later than King James's own, has received its heritage with the Bishop's triumphant cry : * God hath given us a Solomon.' ' Yet it would be matter of regret if King James, as an author, were to pass into complete oblivion. We are, of course, not dealing with literature in any true sense. But, in the King's writings, we have, in the first place, the work of one of the best educated men of his time. Brought up under the care of the greatest living humanist, he was, if a pedant, none the less a scholar. * Thay wald haif me learn Latin before I can speik Scots/ he had scrawled on the margin of his copy-book in his strange, dreary, motherless boyhood in Stirling Castle, and George Buchanan had allowed no whipping-boy to bear vicarious suffering for the shortcomings of the Lord's Anointed. By nature, too, he was shrewd and capable, seeing clearly if not far. His mind was precisely fitted to

INTRODUCTION xi

appreciate the intricacies of Formal Logic, and his thought naturally ran in syllogisms. He re- velled in the hard, logical, and crude discussions on Divinity, which could bear no mystery, and found superstition congenial and mysticism im- possible. The opinions of such a man are better fitted than writings which bear even faint traces of unusual intellectual force, to picture for us the attitude of the men of his time. The political theses which the King impugns and supports, throw an interesting sidelight upon English history and go far to explain the tragedy of his House. But, above all, these interminable treatises are interesting as bringing into relief the personality of perhaps the oddest figure in our national history. James was not a great king; in some respects he was a fool. But, as Henry iv. remarked about him, he was the wisest fool in Christendom. The cautious shrewdness which was ever waging war against the pride of Kingship and the arrogance of intellectual self-confidence ; the simpleness and naivete which strove in vain to hide themselves under an affectation of cunning statecraft and an assertion of fierce wrestlings with the evil spirits of ignorance and heresy ; the quaint humour, now unconscious, and now scoring an obvious or verbal point, but rarely affording salvation from the worst

xii INTRODUCTION

errors that lack of humour can bring ; the worldly- wisdom which only at times rose above the level of garrulous advice; the piety which honestly strove to be unaffected, and which succeeded in clothing the royal prejudices in language of unctuous and suspicious sanctity; the rashness of a mind filled with but one idea and of an ambition which sought vainglory in good and evil alike, mingled with a keen moral sense and with that cowardice which * would not play false and yet would wrongly win ' ; the humility, genuine enough in its way, which boasted that even kings must acknowledge God — all these and a thousand other incongruities make this king real to us in his own pages.

The present selection l from the works of King James comprises his treatise on Scottish Poesie^ and his more widely -known Counter- blaste to Tobacco. The former was written as a preface to a volume of Essayes of a Prentise in the Divine Art of Poesie^ printed at Edinburgh in 1585, when the royal author was eighteen years of age. These Essay es, with His Majesty's Poetical Exercises at Vacant Houres (published in 1591),

1 For a selection on a somewhat larger scale, see Arber's English Reprints, James VI. of Scotland and I. of England. Westminster : A. Constable & Co.

INTRODUCTION xiii

some sonnets, and * The Psalms of KING DAVID translated by KING JAMES,' constitute the whole of the king's production of verse. They possess little interest of any sort* It is other- wise with the Schort Treatise, which, if it proves the king's words that ' if Nature be not the chief worker in this art, Rules will be but a bond to Nature,' remains valuable, not only as showing the aesthetic and intellectual fibre of the writer, but also as the only work of its kind in existence. It is a schoolboy's essay, and it represents the fruit of George Buchanan's teaching. James himself thus apologised for his early work : * I composed these things in my verie young and tender yeares : wherein Nature (except shee were a monster) can admit of no perfection ' ; and, fortunately for our enjoyment of the Treatise -, he never revised it. ' Being of riper yeares, my burden is so great and continual!, without anie intermission, that when my ingyne and age could, my affaires and fasherie would not permit mee to remark the wrong orthography committed by the copiars of my unlegible and ragged hand, far less to amend my proper errours.' The present editor has added a glossary and a few notes to the Treatise and to the Counterblaste. The latter will

1 The reader will find a few specimens on pp. 61-79.

xiv INTRODUCTION

explain itself. It was published, anonymously, shortly after King James's accession to the English throne, and the authorship was first openly avowed in 1616. It shows King James in a lighter vein. He calls it ' but a toy,' and ' the fume of an idle braine ' ; and in Bishop Montagu's Latin translation of his works, which appeared in 1619, it is described as * Misocapnus, sive De Abusu Tobacci Lusus Regius.' But it is a case of Pegasus on stilts, and the humour is, for the most part, unconscious, although the pamphlet might have warranted the Bishop in applying to the royal rhetorician the title of ' Doctor Subtilis.'

Of King James's remaining writings, the most interesting is his Basilikon Doron> or book of advice to his eldest son, Henry, afterwards Prince of Wales. It deals with a king's duty towards God, his duty in his office, and his behaviour in things indifferent. A fierce attack upon Presby- tery and * the proud Puritanes ' explains why it was necessary, in 1599, to limit the first edition to a secret issue of seven copies. * Paritie is the mother of confusion, and enemie to Unitie, which is the mother of order. . . . Take heede therefore (my sonne) to such Puritanes, verie pestes in the Church and Common-weale, whom

INTRODUCTION xv

no deserts can oblige, neither oathes nor promises binde, breathing nothing but sedition and calum- nies, aspiring without measure, railing without reason, and making their owne imaginations (without any warrant of the word) the square of their conscience.' The English succession had removed all need of hiding such sentiments from the Church of Scotland, but the sentence throws a light upon James's religious policy in England and the consequent separation of the Puritans from the Church. James never failed more egregi- ously to understand men's minds than when he confused English Puritanism with Scottish Pres- bytery. We find, too, an anticipation of James's Irish policy in his advice regarding the Scottish Highlands : — * As for the Hie-lands, I shortly comprehend them all in two sorts of people : the one, that dwelleth in our maine land, that are barbarous for the most sorte, and yet mixed with some shewe of civilitie; the other that dwelleth in the lies, and are all uterly barbares, without any sort or shew of civilitie. For the first sort, put straitly to execution the Lawes made alreadie by me against their Over-lords, and the chiefes of their Clannes, and it will be no difficultie to danton them. As for the other sort, follow forth the course that I have intended, in planting

xvi INTRODUCTION

Colonies among them of answerable In-land subjects, that within short time may reforme and civilize the best inclined among them; rooting out or transporting the barbarous and stubborne sort, and planting civilitie in their roomes.' The transference of King James's energies to England reserved the suppression of the clan-system for the government of George n. And, again, we are re- minded of the Book of Sport s, when James urges, as a means of preventing people from speaking ' rashly of their Prince,' the appointment of ' cer- taine dayes in the yeere, for delighting the people with publicke spectacles of all honest games, and exercise of armes; as also for conveening of neighbours, for entertaining friendship and heartli- nesse, by honest feasting and merrinesse : For I cannot see what greater superstition can be in making playes and lawfull games in Maie, and good cheere at Christmas, than in eating fish in Lent, and upon Fridayes, the Papists as well using the one as the other.' 1

The king's personal advice is not less interest-

1 The Scottish Parliament had, after the Reformation, made stringent rules for maintaining the old customs regarding the eating of fish in Lent. These Acts were passed in the interests of the fishing trade, which, as in England, had, since the fifteenth century, contributed largely to the prosperity of the towns on the East Coast,

INTRODUCTION xvii

ing than his political maxims. Prince Henry should 'not marry for money, but marry where money is.' For 'beautie increaseth your love to your wife, and riches and great alliance doe both make her the abler to be a helper unto you.' In things indifferent, he was to be wise and discreet : —

' In the forme of your meate-eating, bee neither uncivill like a grosse cynicke, nor affectatlie mig- narde, like a daintie dame ; but eate in a manlie, round, and honest fashion. ... Be also moderate in your raiment, neither over superfluous, like a deboshed waster, nor yet over base, like a miserable wretch . . . but in your garments be proper, cleanely, comely and honest, wearing your clothes in a care- less yet comely forme.1 . . . Especially eschew to be effeminate in your cloathes, in perfuming, preen- ing [pinning] and such like, and make not a foole of yourselfe in disguising or wearing long haire or nailes. ... In your language be plaine, honest, naturall, comely, cleane, eschewing both the extremities, as well in not using any rusticall corrupt leide [lan- guage], as booke language, and pen and inke-horne termes, and least of all mignard and effeminate termes . . . not taunting in Theologie, nor alleadging and prophaning the Scripture in drinking purposes^ [conversations], as over many doe.^< • If "yee would write worthily, choose subjects worthie of you, that bee not full of vanitie, but of vertue, eschewing

1 Cf. Sir Walter Scott's description of James's person in Tht Fortunes of Nigel, chap. v.

b

xviii INTRODUCTION

obscuritie, and delighting -ever to be plaine and sensible. And if yee write in Verse, remember that it is not the principall part of a Poeme to rime right, and flow well with many pretie wordes : but the chief commendation of a Poeme is, that when the verse shall be shaken sundrie in prose, it shall bee found so rich in quicke inventions, and poetick flowers, and in faire and pertinent comparisons, as it shall retaine the lustre of a Poeme, although in Prose. And I would also advise you to write in your owne language : for there is nothing left to be saide in Greeke and Latine alreadie, and ynew [enough] of poore schollers would match you in these languages ; and beside that, it best becommeth a king to purifie and make famous his owne tongue ; wherein he may goe before all his subjects, as it setteth him well to doe in all honest and lawfull things. And amongst all unnecessarie things that are lawfull and expedient, I think exercises of the bodie most commendable to be used by a young Prince, in such honest games or pastimes, as may further abilitie and maintaine health . . . but from this count I debarre all rough and violent exercises, as the foote-ball, meeter for laming then making able the users thereof. . . . But the exercises that I would have you to use are running, leaping, wrastling, fencing, dancing, and playing at the caitch or tennise, archerie, palle maille, and such like other faire and pleasant field-games. And the honourablest and most commendable games that yee can use, are on horseback, for it becommeth a Prince best of any man, to be a faire and good horseman. ... I cannot omit heere the hunting, namely with running hounds, which is the most honourable and noblest sorte thereof : for it is a theevish forme of hunting to shoote with gunnes and bowes, and grey-

I NT R O D U C T I O N xix

hound hunting is not so martiall a game. . . . When ye are wearie of reading, or evill disposed in your person, and when it is foule and stormie weather ; then, I say, may ye lawfully play at the cardes or tables. For as to dicing, I thinke it becommeth best deboshed souldiers to play at, on the head of their drums, being onely ruled by hazard, and subject to knavish cogging. And as for the chesse, I think it over fond, because it is over-wise and Philosophicke a toy. For where all such light playes are ordained to free men's heades for a time, from the fashious thoughts on their affaires ; it by the contrarie filleth and troubleth men's heades, with as many fashious toyes of the play, as before it was filled with thoughts on his affairs.'

So he rambles garrulously on, playing with keen zest the part of Polonius (which his future subject must about the same time have been creating). It is all wise and shrewd, and the language redeems the commonplace of the thought. He refers now and again to the circumstances of his youth and the troubles of his mother's reign, describing his uncle, the Regent Murray, as * that bastard, who unnaturally rebelled, and procured the ruine of his owne Soverane and sister/ and urging the destruction of 'such infamous invec- tives as Buchanan's or Knoxes Chronicles.' In command of Scriptural quotation the king cannot have been surpassed by any of the hated Presby- terians who * claiming to their Paritie, and crying,

xx INTRODUCTION

" Wee are all but vile wormes," yet will judge and give Law to their king, but will be judged nor controlled by none/ It is with them in mind that he advises the prince to study well the Psalms of David 'for teaching you the forme of your prayers. ... So much the fitter are they for you then for the common sort, in respect the composer thereof was a king : and therefore best behoved to know a king's wants, and what things were meetest to be required by a king at God's hand for remedie thereof.' The sentence seems to resound with the echoes of ecclesiastical contro- versies, and it reveals the storehouse from which King James borrowed his armour when he went forth to face Andrew Melville himself.

Next in interest to the Basilikon Doron is a treatise on Daemonologie^ in Forme of a Dialogue, which also saw the light in 1599. James is well known as a persecutor of witches, and here we have his Apologia. It was written * not in any wise to serve for a shew of my learning and ingine,' but as a protest ' against the damnable opinions of two principally in our age, whereof the one called Scot,1 an Englishman, is not ashamed

1 Reginald Scot (i538?-i599) was the author of The Dis- coverie of Witchcraft (1584), in which he advanced views far beyond his age with regard to witchcraft and sorcery. He had

INTRODUCTION xxi

in publike Print to deny, that there can be such a thing as witchcraft : and so maintaines the old errour of the Sadduces in denying of spirits ; the other called Wierus, a German Physitian, sets out a publike Apologie for all these craftsfolkes, whereby, procuring for their impunitie, he plainely bewrayes himselfe to have bene one of that pro- fession.' The interlocutors are Philomathes, the willing disciple, and Epistemon, the wise in- structor. Epistemon begins by proving (largely by means of the Witch of Endor) the possibility of magic, and then proceeds to divide it into Necromancie and Sorcerie or Witchcraft.

PHI. What difference is there between Necro- mancie and Witchcraft ?

EPI. Surely, the difference vulgare put betwix them is very merry, and in a manner true ; for they say, that the Witches are servants onely, and slaves to the divel ; but the Necromanciers are his masters and commanders.

PHI. How can that be true, that any men being specially addicted to his service can be his com- manders ?

EPI. Yea, they may be : but it is onely secundum quid; for it is not by any power that they can have over him, but ex pacto allanerlie ; whereby he obliges

adopted, in part, the enlightened opinions of John Wier (1515- 1588), who published, in 1566, a work entitled De Pracstiqiis Demonum. Cf. Mr. Sidney Lee's article on Scot in the Dictionary of National Biography.

xxii INTRODUCTION

himselfe in some trifles to them, that he may on the other part obteine the fruition of their body and soule, which is the onely thing he huntes for.

After a discussion of the use of charms, we come to the 'difference between God's miracles and the DiveFs ' :—

'God is a creatour, what he makes appeare in myracle, it is so in effect. As Moyses Rod being casten downe, was no doubt turned into a naturall serpent ; whereas the divel (as God's ape) counter- setting that by his magicians, made their wandes to appeare so, onely to men's outward senses : as kythed [was shown] in effect by their being devoured by the other ; for it is no wonder that the divel may delude our senses, since we see by common proofe, that simple jugglars will make an hundredth things seeme both to our eyes and eares otherwayes then they are.' Passing now to witchcraft, Epistemon declines to believe that witches can travel to their diabolical conferences in the shape of a little beast or fowl, but thinks it credible that they can be ' caried by the force of the spirit which is their conducter, either above the earth, or above the Sea swiftly, to the place where they are to meete : which I am persuaded to be possible in respect that as Habakkuk was carried by the Angel 1 in that forme, to the den where Daniel lay ; so thinke I, the divell will be readie to imitate God as well in that as in other things : which is much more possible to him to doe, being a Spirit, then to a mighty wind, being but a naturall meteore.'

1 Bel and the Dragon.

INTRODUCTION xxiii

The idea of witchcraft naturally suggests a ques- tion which gives King James an opportunity for one of his mpst characteristic sentences : —

I*/*******

PHi/AVhat can be the cause that there are twentieX womenjn.ven tp that craft, where there is one man ? \

EPl/Trne reason is easie, for as that sexe is frailer then man is, so is it easier to be intrapped in these I grosse snares of the divell, as was overwell prooved / to be trew by the serpent's deceiving of Eva at the / beginning, which makes him the homelier with that / sex sensine. /

The discussion on witchcraft ends with a reminiscence of 'the Logicks' : —

EPI. Doubtlesse who denieth the power of the Divell would likewise denie the power of God, if they could for shame. For since the Divel is the very contrarie opposite to God, there can bee no better way to know God, then by the contrarie ; as by the one's power (though a creature) to admire the power of the great Creatour : by the falshood of the one to consider the trewth of the other : by the injustice of the one to consider the justice of the other : and by the cruelty of the one, to consider the mercifulnesse of the other, and so foorth in all the rest of the essence of God, and qualities of the Divell. But I feare indeed, there bee over many Sadduces in this world, that denie all kinds of Spirits : for convicting of whose errour, there is cause enough if there were no more, that God should permit at sometimes Spirits visibly to kyith.

The third book deals with Ghosts, which are

xxiv INTRODUCTION

explained as being evil spirits which 'have assumed a dead bodie, whereinto they lodge themselves/ The bodies of the righteous may be used for this purpose for * the rest of them that the Scripture speakes of, is not meaned by a locall remaining continually in one place, but by their resting from their travailes,' and ' there is nothing in the bodies of the faithfull, more worthie of honour, or freer from corruption by nature, nor in these of the unfaithfull, while time they be purged and glori- fied in the latter Day> as is daily scene by the wilde diseases and corruptions, that the bodies of the faithfull are subject unto.' The story of the wer-wolf he rejects in a characteristically matter-of-fact way : * If any such thing hath beene, I take it to have proceeded but of a naturall super -abundance of melancholy, which as we reade, that it hath made some thinke themselves pitchers, and some horses, and some one kinde of beast or other, so suppose I that it hath so viciat the imagination and memory of some, as per lucida intervalla^ it hath so highly occupied them, that they have thought themselves very woolfes indeed at these times . . . but as to their having and hiding of their hard and schelly fluiches, I take that to be but eiked [added], by uncertaine report, the author of all lies.' The Brownies, on

INTRODUCTION xxv

the contrary, are genuine, being evil spirits sent to haunt houses * without doing any evill, but doing as it were necessarie turnes up and downe the house/ the more readily to deceive ignorant Christians in times of Papistrie and blindness, and make them account God's enemy their own particular friend. The * Phairie/ again, are merely illusions, 'objected' by the devil to men's fantasie and not possessing any real existence, apart from the common herd of evil spirits. And so we reach the conclusion of the whole matter — the duty of suppressing, at any cost, the sin of witchcraft. Epistemon will not admit that there is any real difficulty in detecting guilt. If witchcraft cannot be absolutely proved in all cases, yet the accused are always sure to be ' of a very evill life and reputation/ and so no real injustice is done. c And besides that, there are two other good helps that may be used for their triall : The one is, the finding of their marke, and the trying the insen- siblenes thereof: the other is their fleeting on the water ... for it appears that God hath ap- pointed . . . that the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosome that have shaken off them the sacred water of baptisme, and wilfully refused the benefite thereof: No, not so much as their eyes are able to shed teares (threaten and torture

xxvi INTRODUCTION

them as ye please) while [till] first they repent . . . albeit the womenkind especially be able other- wayes to shed teares at every light occasion when they will, yea although it were dissemblingly like the crocodiles.' We are thus brought from comedy to tragedy, for the darkest stain on the wonderful history of seventeenth-century Scotland is the record of the cruel tortures and executions of many innocent old women whom an unfor- tunate combination of circumstances or the malice of personal enemies had accused of witchcraft.

King James's purely theological work l consists of A Paraphrase upon the Revelation of S. John, dedicated to ' the whole Church Militant,' A Meditation upon i Chron. xv. 25-29, and a De- claration against the Dutch heretic, Vorstius,2 which bears the extraordinary inscription : — * To

1 Subsequently to the folio edition, King James published two purely theological writings, A Meditation upon the Lords Prayer (1619), and A Meditation upon St. Matthew xxvii. 27-29 (1620). After his death, there appeared Cygnea Cantio or Learned Decisions, and most Prudent and Pious Directions for Students in Divinitie, delivered by our late Soveraigne of Happie Memorie, King James, at Whitehall, a few weekes before his death (1629). It was edited by Daniel Featly, the well-known controversialist, chaplain to Archbishop Abbot, and is a report of a ' scholastick duel ' between the king and Featly.

2 Conrad Vorstius (1569-1622) succeeded Arminius in his Chair in the University of Leyden in 1610.

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the Honour of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ... in signe of Thankfulnes, His Most Humble and Most Obliged Servant, James, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britaine, France, and Irelande, Defender of the Faith, Doeth Dedicate and Consecrate this his Declaration.' The Para- phrase was written before the king was twenty years of age, and the Meditation a little later, and they are just what might be expected from a clever boy who had received James's training and possessed his self-confidence. The Declaration is addressed to the States-General of the United Provinces, and its aim was to persuade them to deprive Vorstius, a follower of Arminius, of his office in the University of Leyden, and, if possible, to bring him to the stake. His main offence con- sisted in his Tractates Theologicus de Deo> and his Exegesis Apologetica, in which he had argued that * nothing forbids us to say that God hath a Body, so as we take a Body in the largest signifi- cation/ and had expressed similar and consequent tenets. James described him as c a wretched Heretique or rather Athiest/ and used his whole diplomatic power to secure his ruin. He pro- fessed his readiness to have controverted Arminius in person ; but * it was our hard hap not to heare of this Arminius before he was dead,7 and he had

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to content himself with warnings regarding the dangers of heresy in general, and the pernicious effect of the teaching of Vorstius in particular. The books in question were solemnly burned in London, Oxford, and Cambridge; and James, who was invited to act as umpire between Vorstius and his opponents in Leyden, succeeded in obtaining his expulsion from Leyden, and afterwards his banishment from the States. The Declaration shows considerable debating power, and a know- ledge of orthodox Theology, and it proves that the Calvinistic teaching in which James was educated had not lost its hold upon his mind.

Two further treatises deal with the relation of Church to State, and they may be next described. A Defence of the Right of Kings against an oration of the Most Illustrious Cardinal of Perron^ arose out of a speech made by the Cardinal in the Chamber of the Third Estate in France, at the meeting of the States-General in 1614 (the last instance of their being convened till the Assembly of 1789). The assassination of Henry in. in 1589, when under a Papal sentence of excommunication,

1 Jacques Davy du Perron, Cardinal (successively Bishop of Evreux, and Archbishop of Sens). The Cardinal's oration was translated into English in 1616. He wrote a reply to King James's Defence^ but it did not appear in English till 1630, when it was translated by the Viscountess Falkland.

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and the murder of Henry iv. in 1610 (of which the Jesuits were, probably unjustly, suspected to have been the instigators), had drawn attention to the ever-recurring question of the relation of a monarch to the Papacy. A motion was under discussion which was intended, as King James puts it, to disavow the sentiment that 'the Pope may tosse the French King his Throne like a tennis ball/ and the Cardinal's speech, which turned the current of opinion in a Papal direction, was printed with the Pope's recommendation, and a copy was sent to King James 'by the Author and Orator himselfe ; who presupposed the read- ing thereof would forsooth drive me to say, " Lord Cardinall, in this high subject your Honour hath satisfied me to the full." ' The main portion of the argument is occupied with a discussion of historical instances adduced by the Cardinal to show the powers which had been exercised by Popes over Kings in the past, and James disputes the ground inch by inch. As regards wider con- siderations, he observes that, while the Cardinal had asserted the Pope's power of deposing a king only in cases of Apostasy, Heresy, and persecution of the Church, these powers had, in fact, been claimed on a very much wider scale, and ' Heresy ' may include anything whatsoever. 'Among the

xxx INTRODUCTION

crimes which the Councel of Constance charged Pope John xxn. withall, one was this, that hee denied the immortalitie of the soule. . . Now if the Pope shall be caried by the streame of these or the like errours, and in his Hereticall pravitie shall depose a king of the contrary opinion, I shall hardly bee persuaded, the said king is law- fully deposed.' He points out also the evil effects likely to follow from the authorisation of such teaching by the Roman Church, and makes a profession of tolerance, which was probably justified as far as Roman Catholicism was con- cerned : —

1 As for myselfe, and my Popish Subjects, to whom I am no lesse then an heretike forsooth ; am I not by this doctrine of the Cardinall, pricked and whetted against my naturall inclination, to turne clemencie into rigour ; seeing that by his doctrine my subjects are made to believe, they owe me subjection onely by way of proviso^ and with waiting the occasion to worke my utter destruction and finall ruine. . . . Who seeth not here how great indignitie is offered to me a Christian King, paralleld with Infidels, reputed worse then a Turke, taken for an usurper of my kingdomes, reckoned a Prince, to whom subjects owe a forced obedience by way of provision, untill they shall have meanes to shake off the yoke, and to bare my temples of the Crowne, which never can be pulled from the sacred Head, but with losse of the head itselfe ? . . . The plotters and practisers

INTRODUCTION xxxi

against my life are honoured and rewarded with a glorious name of Martyrs : their constancie (what els ?) is admired, when they suffer death for treason. Wheras hitherto during the time of my whole raigne to this day (I speake it in the word of a king, and trewth itselfe shall make good the king's worde) no man hath lost his life, no man hath indured the Racke, no man hath suffered corporall punish- ment in other kinds, meerely or simply, or in any degree of respect, for his conscience in matter of religion ; but for wicked conspiring against my life, or estate, or Royall Dignitie ; or els for some notori- ous crime, or some obstinate and wilfull disobedience.'

James was acute enough to see the weakness of the Cardinal's admission that 'the Church abhorreth sudden and unprepensed murders [of kings] above the rest . . . because in sudden murders oftentimes the soule and the body perish both together/ and he compares it to the well- known quibble of the Jesuit Mariana : —

* For Mariana liketh not at any hand the poison- ing of a Tyrant by his meat or drinke : for feare lest he taking the poison with his owne hand, and swallow- ing or gulping it downe in his meate or drinke so taken, should be found felo de se (as the common Lawyer speaketh), or culpable of his owne death. But Mariana likes better, to have a Tyrant poysoned by his chaire, or by his apparell and robes . . . that being so poysoned onely by sent, or by contact, he may not be found guiltie of selfe-fellonie, and the soule of the poore Tyrant in her flight out of the

xxxii INTRODUCTION

body may be innocent. O hel-houndes, O diabolical wretches, O infernall monsters! Did they onely suspect and imagine, that either in kings there is any remainder of kingly courage, or in their subjects any sparke left of ancient libertie ; they durst as soone eat their nailes, or teare their owne flesh from the bones, as once broach the vessell of this diabolical! device. How long then, how long shall kings whom the Lord hath called his Anointed, kings the breath- ing images of God upon earth ; kings that with a wry or frowning looke, are able to crush these earth- wormes in pieces ; how long shall they suffer this viperous brood, scot-free and without punishment, to spit in their faces ? how long the Majestic of God in their person and Royall Majestic, to be so notoriously vilified, so dishonourably trampled under foot ? '

Apart from its rhetoric, the Defence shows James at his best as a controversialist, It was a subject on which he felt strongly and with regard to which he had a good case; and he knew his position to be so strong that he could speak of his adversary with courtesy and respect, except when he was carried away by his own denunciations. It was a subject, too, which afforded an opportunity for a display of his very considerable learning, and he was not insensible of the importance, for this purpose, of marginal references, if judiciously employed.

The other politico-theological treatise is An Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance^ imposed

INTRODUCTION xxxiii

upon Roman Catholics after the Gunpowder Plot. Pope Paul v. had issued two Briefs for- bidding English Romanists to take the oath, and Cardinal Bellarmin, the ex-Jesuit, had enforced the Papal briefs in a strongly worded letter. James now published, under a veil of anonymity, a remarkably temperate defence of the position of the Government, pointing out that the oath did not involve any acknowledgment of the Royal Headship of the Church, and was a promise of political obedience. Two answers made to this Apologie led to the king's publishing a second edition, in his own name, with a vigorous pre- amble, entitled, 'A Premonition to all Most Mightie Monarchs, Kings, Free Princes, and States of Christendom/ One of these answers was in English, and was the work of an English Roman Catholic resident abroad,1 Him James dismissed in a few words, considering 'a rope the fittest answer ' for him : —

1 As for the English Answerer, my unnaturall and fugitive Subject ; I will neither defile my pen, nor your sacred eyes or eares with the describing of him, who ashames, nay, abhorres not to raile, nay, to rage and spew foorth blasphemies against the late Queene of famous memory. A subject to raile against his naturall Soveraigne by birth ; a man to

1 Parsons the Jesuit.

xxxiv INTRODUCTION

raile against a Lady by sexe ; a holy man (in outward profession) to insult upon the dead ; nay, to take Radamanthus office over his head, and to sit downe and play the judge in hell.'

The other antagonist had written in Latin, and his name led the king into a play upon words — ' Hee calleth himselfe Mattheus Tortus, Cardinall Bellarmins Chaplaine. A throwne l Evangelist indeed, full of thro ward Divinitie.' Tortus brought three main accusations against James, that he was an Apostate, having been baptized into the Roman Faith; that he had been a Puritan in Scotland, and now persecuted the Puritans; and that he was a Heretic. Against each of these James defended himself in his characteristic manner, making incidentally a number of interesting statements, and concluding with an assertion of the Anglo-Catholic position which is strangely reminiscent of modern contro- versies : —

4 1 am no Apostate . . . not onely having ever bene brought up in that Religion which I presently professe, but even my Father and Grandfather on that side professing the same. . . . And as for the Queene my Mother of worthy memorie ; although she continued in that Religion wherein she was

1 Being a proper word to expresse the trew meaning of Tortus [original note].

INTRODUCTION xxxv

nourished, yet was she so farre from being supersti- tious or Jesuited therein, that at my Baptisme (al- though I was baptized by a Popish Archbishop) she sent him word to forbeare to use the spettle in my Baptisme ; which was obeyed, being indeed a filthy and an apish tricke, rather in scorne then in imita- tion of Christ. ... As also the Font wherein I was Christened, was sent from the late Queene here of famous memory, who was my Godmother ; and what her Religion was, Pius v. was not ignorant. And for further proofe, that that renowned Queene my Mother was not superstitious ; as in all her Letters (whereof I received many) she never made mention of Religion, nor laboured to persuade me in it ; so at her last words, she commanded her Master-houshold, a Scottish Gentleman, my servant and yet alive, she commanded him (I say) to tell me ; that although she was of another Religion then that wherein I was brought up ; yet she would not presse me to change, except myowne Conscience forced mee to do it. ... Neither can my Baptisme in the rites of their Religion make me an Apostate, or Heretike in respect of my present profession, since we all agree in the substance thereof, being all Baptized In the Name of the Father, the Sonne, and the holy Ghost: upon which head there is no variance amongst us. ... I cannot enough wonder with what brasen face this Answerer could say that I was a Puritane in Scotland, and an enemie to Protestants : I that was persecuted by Puritanes there, not from my birth onely, but even since foure moneths before my birth?1 I that in the yeere of God 84 erected Bishops, and depressed all

A reference to the circumstances of the murder of Rizzio.

xxxvi INTRODUCTION

their popular Paritie, I being then not 18 yeeres of aage ? I that in my Booke to my Sonne doe speake tenne times more bitterly of them nor of the Papists ; having in my second Edition thereof, affixed a long Apologetike Preface, onely in odium Puritan-

orum ? .

And now for the point of Heretike, I will never bee ashamed to render an accompt of my profession, and of that hope that is in me, as the Apostle pre- scribeth. I amsuchaCATHOLIKE CHRISTIAN, as beleeveth the three Creeds . . . and I beleeve them in that sense, as the ancient Fathers and Councels that made them did understand them. ... I reverence and admit the foure first gene- rall Councels as Catholique and Orthodoxe. . . . As for the Fathers, I reverence them as much and more then the Jesuites doe. ... As for the Scriptures, no man doubteth I will beleeve them. ... As for the Saints departed, I honour their memory, and in honour of them doe we in our Church observe the dayes of so many of them, as the Scripture doeth canonize for Saints. . . . For the blessed Virgin Marie, I yeeld her that which the Angel Gabriel pronounced of her . . . that all gene- rations shall call her blessed. . . . And I freely con- fesse that shee is in glory both above angels and men, her owne Sonne (that is both God and man) onely excepted. But I dare not mocke her and blaspheme against God, calling her not onely Diva but Dea, and praying her to command and controule her Sonne, who is her God and her Saviour : Nor yet not I thinke, that shee hath no other thing to doe in heaven than to heare every idle man's suite, and busie herselfe in their errands ; whiles requesting, whiles commanding her Sonne, whiles comming

INTRODUCTION xxxvii

downe to kisse and make love with Priestes, and whiles disputing and brawling with Devils. . . . That Bishops ought to be in the Church. I ever main- tained it, as an Apostolique institution. ... If the Romish Church hath coined new Articles of Faith, never heard of the first sooyeeres after Christ, I hope I shall never bee condemned for an Heretike, for not being a Novelist. . . . Since I beleeve as much as the Scriptures doe warrant, the Creeds doe per- swade, and the ancient Councels decreed ; I may well be a Schismatike from Rome, but I am sure I am no Heretike. . . . And I will sincerely promise, that whenever any point of the Religion I professe, shalbe proved to be new, and not Ancient, Catholike, and Apostolike (I meane for matter of Faith) I will as soone renounce it.'

But the Anglican Catholic, before he concludes, appears as a sixteenth-century Protestant, and devotes many pages, and much wealth of Scrip- tural and historical allusion, to proving that the Pope is Antichrist.1 From this we pass naturally to an Appendix consisting of * A Catalogue of the Lyes of Tortus, together with a Briefe Confutation of them/ and there we leave this part of our subject.

1 The Gunpowder Plot and the Perron controversy had driven James to this extreme attitude. At the time of his arrival in England he held quite different language:— 'I acknowledge the Romane Church to be our Mother Church, although denied with some infirmities and corruptions.'— Speech in Parliament, March 1603.

xxxviii INTRODUCTION

It remains to mention King James's more purely political writings. These have reference, mainly, to three topics — the proposed Union of the Kingdoms, the Gunpowder Plot, and the general relations between king and subject. In his first speech to his English Parliament, on igth March 1603-4, the king brought forward his proposal for a complete union of the two king- doms. The words in which he commended it to his ne^people are very characteristic : —

'x"x'What God hath conjoyned, let no man separate. I am the Husband and all the whole Isle is my lawfull wife ; I am the Head, and it is my Body ; I am the Shepherd, and it is my flocke ; I hope therefore no man will be so unreasonable as to thinke that I that am a Christian King under the Gospel, should be a Polygamist and husband to two wives ; that I being the Head, should have a divided and monstrous Body ; or that being the Shepheard to so faire a Flocke (whose fold hath no wall to hedge it but the foure seas) should have my Flocke parted in two. . . . And as God hath made Scotland the one halfe of this Isle to enjoy my Birth, and the first and most unperfect halfe of my life, and you heere to enjoy the perfect and the last halfe thereof : so can I not thinke that any would be so injurious to me ... as to asunder the one halfe of me from the other.'

The incorporating Union proposed by King James was more thorough than that which after- wards was carried in 1707. It involved the

INTRODUCTION xxxix

abolition of Scots Law, and the Scottish Church would have become part of the Church of England. The Parliament did not welcome the proposal, and, in 1607-8, James had again to devote his oratorical power to persuade his English subjects to consent : —

'You here have all the great advantage by the Union. Is not here the personall residence of the King, his whole Court and family? Is not here the seate of Justice, and the fountaine of Government ? must they [the Scots] not be subjected to the Lawes of England, and so with time become but as Cumber- land and Northumberland, and those other remote and Northern Shires? you are to be the husband, they the wife : you conquerours, they as conquered, though not by the sword, but by the sweet and sure bond of love. . . . Some thinke that I will draw the Scottish nation hither, talking idlely of transporting of trees out of a barren ground into a better . . . doe you not thinke I know England hath more people, Scotland more wast ground ? so that there is roumth in Scotland rather to plant your idle people that swarme in London streets, and other Townes, and disburden you of them? . . . The Kings my suc- cessours, being borne and bred heere, can never have more occasion of acquaintance with the Scottish nation in generall, then any other English King that was before my time. . . . Since my comming from them I doe not alreadie know the one halfe of them by face, most of the youth being now risen up to bee men, who were but children when I was there, and more are borne since my comming thence/

xl INTRODUCTION

James failed to convince the English Parlia- ment. The question became connected with the difficult constitutional problems of the time, and the project was definitely abandoned. Like James's foreign policy, the scheme possessed a distinct note of statesmanship, but it resembled it also in its impracticability. It was premature, and could not but have ended in disaster: the ecclesiastical conditions alone would have been sufficient to work its ruin.

In connection with the Gunpowder Plot, the king published A Discourse of the maner of the Discoverie of the Powder Treason^ joyned with the examination of some of the prisoners^ and he also devoted to the subject his speech to Parlia- ment after the discovery. In neither does he add anything that is not otherwise known ; but his personal allusions are, as usual, interesting, and he gives us incidentally such a piece of information as the fact that Salisbury was accus- tomed to end an audience with the king 'with some merry jeast.' In his Speech to Parliament, James laid great stress on the 'two great and fearefull Domesdayes, wherwith God threatned to destroy mee.' The first was the mysterious Ruthven Raid : the second, the Gunpowder Plot :—

INTRODUCTION xli

* By three different sorts in generall may mankinde be put to death. The first, by other men and reason- able creatures, which is least cruell . . . and the second way more cruell then that, is by Animal and unreasonable creatures, for as they have less pitie then men, so is it a greater horror and more un- naturall for men to deale with them. . . . But the third, which is most cruell and unmercifull of all, is the destruction by insensible and inanimate things, and amongst them all, the most cruell are the two elements of Water and Fire : and of those two, the fire most raging and mercilesse. . . . The dis- covery hereof is not a little wonderfull, which would bee thought the more miraculous by you all, if you were as well acquainted with my naturall disposition, as those are who be neere about me : For as I ever did hold suspition to be the sicknes of a Tyrant, so was I so farre upon the other extremity, as I rather contemned all advertisements, or apprehensions of practises. And yet now at this time was I so farre contrary to myselfe, as when the Letter was shewed to me by my Secretary, wherein a generall obscure advertisement was given of some dangerous blow at this time, I did upon the instant interpret and appre- hend some darke phrases therein, contrary to the ordinary Grammar construction of them,1 (and in

1 The words (which occurred in a letter to Lord Mounteagle, warning him not to go to the meeting of Parliament) were : — 1 For though there be no appearance of any stirre, yet I say, they shall receive a terrible Blow this Parliament, and yet they shall not see who hurts them. This counsell is not to be contemned, because it may doe you good, and can doe you no harme ; for the danger is past so soone as you have burnt the Letter.' The last clause was construed by the king to

xlii INTRODUCTION

another sort then I am sure any Divine, or Lawyer in any Universitie, would have taken them) to be meant by this horrible forme of blowing us up all by Powder.'

Finally, we have King James's political philo- sophy stated in a discussion of The Trew Law of Free Monarchies, written before he left Scotland, and in three speeches to his English Parlia- ment. His view was that which is known as the Divine Right of Kings. ' Kings are justly called Gods/ for

* God gives not kings the style of Gods in vaine.'

The king is the father of his people, and they may in no case oppose his will. If he is a bad king, he 'is sent by God for a curse to his people, and a plague for their sinnes : but that it is lawfull for them to shake off that curse at their owne hand, which God hath laid on them, that I deny, and may do so justly/ To God alone is any king responsible. The king is above the law. ' A good king will frame all his actions to be according to the Law, yet is hee not bound thereto but of

indicate ' the suddaintie and quickenesse of the danger, which should be as quickly performed and at an end as that paper should be of bleasing up in the fire; turning that word of as soone to the sense of as quickly,' and this suggested gun- powder.— Discourse of the Powder Treason.

INTRODUCTION xliii

his good will, and for good example-giving to his subjects.' This theory he grounded upon the law of nature which makes the king stand to the people as the father to the children or the head to the members ; upon the statements of chroniclers regarding early history ; upon deductions from the laws (e.g. the law of treasure-trove) ; and upon the teachings of Scripture. In his Trew Law, he makes a clever use of Samuel's description of the office of a king, when the Israelites demanded a king to rule over them, and the old prophet .attempted to dissuade them, by drawing a picture of the powers of an absolute monarch. This speech of Samuel being part of Holy Scripture, 4 it must necessarily follow that these speeches proceeded not from any ambition in Samuel, as one loath to quite the reines that he so long had ruled, and therefore desirous, by making odious the government of a king, to disswade the people from their farther importunate craving of one. For, as the text proveth it plainly, he then conveened them to give them a resolute grant of their demand, as God by his owne mouth commanded him, saying, "Hearken to the voice of the people" And to presse to disswade

1 i Samuel viii. 11-18.

xliv INTRODUCTION

them from that, which he then came to grant unto them, were a thing very impertinent in a wise man ; much more in the Prophet of the most high God/

In his speeches to his English Parliaments, James stated his position with regard to the rights and privileges of Parliament. ' It is no place for particular men to utter their private conceipts, nor for satisfaction of their curiosities, and least of all to make shew of their eloquence by tyning [losing] the time with long studied and eloquent Orations : No, the reverence of God, their King, and their Countrey being well setled in their hearts, will make them ashamed of such toyes. . . . Men should bee ashamed to make shew of the quicknesse of their wits here, either in taunting, scoffing, or detracting the Prince or State in any point, or yet in breaking jests upon their fellowes.' The duty of a Parliament is to ' give advice in such things as shall by the king be proposed/ to propose anything that, after mature judgment it shall consider to be needfull, to supply the king with money, and to inform him of grievances. But, under the pretext of grievances, Parliament must not presume to * meddle with the maine points of Government,' or with ancient ^Rights received by the king from

INTRODUCTION xlv

his predecessors, or to attempt to disturb * any thing that is established by a setled Law,' which they know the king is unwilling to alter. Both in his speeches to Parliament and in ' A Speach in the Starre Chamber/ James stated his belief in the doctrine that the king is the fountain of law. And he warned the judges of the Star Chamber not to decide anything affecting the royal prerogative or mysteries of State, without first consulting the king. * The absolute Prerogative of the Crowne is no subject for the tongue of a Lawyer, nor is lawfull to be disputed. It is Athiesme and blas- phemie to dispute what God can doe ... so, it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can doe or say that a king cannot doe this.' These speeches abound in valuable illustrations of the domestic history of the reign, though the topics are too varied to find mention here.

Only once does James refer to the great political theory which was being debated in his time — the theory of the Social Contract, afterwards asso- ciated with the name of Locke. * There is, say they, a mutuall paction, and contract bound up, and sworne betwixt the king and the people : Whereupon it followeth, that if the one part of the contract or the Indent bee broken upon the

xlvi INTRODUCTION

king's side, the people are no longer bound to keepe their part of it, but are thereby freed of their oath.' James denies the existence of any such contract, c especially containing such a clause irritant as they alledge,' but admits that, at his coronation, a king ' willingly promiseth to his people ' to discharge his office honourably. But God alone can judge whether or not the promise has been broken : ' the cognition and revenge must only appertaine to him/ and he must first ' give sentence upon the king that breaketh.'

' Our play is played out.' It is easy to speak severely of the puppets; but the feeling of the reader will probably be directed rather towards a sympathetic judgment. The faults of King James lay largely on the surface. If he has not deserved the prophecy of his flatterers : —

* The Monarks all to thee shall quit their place : Thy endless fame shall all the world fulfill. And after thee, none worthier shal be scene, To sway the Sword, and gaine the Laurell greene,'

yet we may apply to him the often-quoted words that were written of his grandson : * He had as good a claim to a kind interpretation as most men. If there might be matter for objections, there is not less reason for excuses ; the defects

INTRODUCTION xlvii

laid to his charge, are such as may claim in- dulgence from mankind. Should nobody throw a stone at his faults but those who are free from them, there would be but a slender shower/

R. S. R.

NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, January 1900.

ANE SCHORT

TREATISE,

CONTEINING SOME REVLIS

and cautelis to be observit and

eschewit in Scottis

Poesic.

A QVADRAIN OF ALEXANDRIN

VERSE, DECLARING TO WHOME THE Authour hes direct it his labour

To ignorants obdurde, whair wilful errour iyis, Noryit to curious folks, whilks carping dots deject theey Noryit to learned men, wha thinks thame onelie wyis, Bot to the docile bairns ofknawledge. I direct thee.

THE PREFACE TO

the Reader.

[HE cause why (docile Reader) I have not dedicat this short treatise to any particular personis (as com- mounly workis usis to be) is, that I esteme all thais wha hes already some beginning of knawledge, with ane earnest desyre to atteyne to farther, alyke meit for the reading of this worke, or any uther, whilk may help thame to the atteining to thair foirsaid desyre. Bot .as to J^his work, whilk is intitulit, The Reulis and ' friuldfa [devices] to be observit and eschewit in Scott is^fjjj^^ ye may marvell para- venture, whairfore f^rould have writtin in that mater, sen sa mony learnit men, baith of auld and of late hes already written thairof in dyvers and sindry languages : I answer, That nochtwith- standing, I have lykewayis writtin of it, for twa caussis : The ane is, As for them that wrait of auld, lyke as the tyme is changeit sensyne [since then] sa is the ordour of Poesie changeit. For then they observit not Flowing, nor eschewit not

4 THE PREFACE TO

Ryming in termes, besydes sindrie uther thingis, whilk now we observe, and eschew, and dois well in sa doing : because that now, when the warld is waxit auld, we have all their opinionis in writ, whilk were learned before our tyme, besydes our awin ingynis [abilities], whairas they then did it onelie be thair awin ingynis, but help of any uther. Thairfore, what I speik of Poesie now, I speik of it, as being come to mannis age and perfectioun, whairas then, it was bot in the infancie and chyldheid. The uther cause is, That as for thame that hes written in it of late, there hes never ane of thame written in our language. For albeit sindrie hes written of it in English, whilk is lykest to our language, yit we differ from thame in sindrie reulis of Poesie, as ye will find be experi- ence. I have lykewayis omittit dyvers figures, whilkis are necessare to be usit in verse, for two causis. The ane is, because they are usit in all languages, and thairfore are spokin of be Du Bdlay^ and sindrie utheris, wha hes written in this airt. Whairfore gif I wrait of them also, it sould seme that I did bot repete that, whilk they have written, and yit not sa weil, as they have done already. The uther cause is, that they are figures of Rhetorique and Dialectique, whilkis

1 Du Bellay (1524-1560) formed, along with Ronsard, Remi Belleau, Jodelle, Dorat, Bai'f, and Pontus de Thiard, the Pl'eiade of French poets in the reign of Henri in. Brantdme ( Vies des Dames Ilhistres] tells us that Du Bellay was a favourite poet of James's mother, Queen Mary.

THE READER 5

airtis I professe nocht, and thairfore will apply to my selfe the counsale, whilk ApelUs gave to the shoomaker, when he said to him, seing him find fait with the shankis of the Image of Venus, efter that he had found fait with the pantotm [shoe], Ne sutor ultra crepidam.

I will also wish you (docile Reidar) that or [before] ye cummer you with reiding thir reulis, ye may find in your self sic a beginning of Nature, as ye may put in practise in your verse many of thir foirsaidis preceptis, or ever ye sie them as they are heir set doun. For gif Nature be nocht the cheif worker in this airt, Reulis wilbe bot a band to Nature, and will mak you within short space weary of the haill airt : whairas, gif Nature be cheif, and bent to it, reulis will be ane help and staff to Nature. I will end heir, lest my preface be langer nor my purpose and haill mater following : wishing you, docile Reidar, als gude succes and great proffeit by reiding this short treatise, as I tuke earnist and willing panis to blok [devise] it, as ye sie, for your cause. Fare weill.

I HAVE insert in the hinder end of this Treatise, maist kyndis of versis whilks are not cuttit or brokin, bot alyke many feit in everie lyne of the verse, and how they are commounly namit, with my opinioun for what subiectis ilk [each] kynde of thir verse is meitest to be usit.

6 THE PREFACE TO THE READER

TO knaw the quantitie of your lang or short fete in they lynes, whilk I have put in the reule, whilk teachis you to knaw what is Flowing, I have markit the lang fute with this mark, — and above the heid of the shorte fute, I have put this mark w. * *

SONNET OF THE AVTHOVR

TO THE READER.

EN for your saik I wryte upon your airt,

Apollo, Pan, and ye b Musis nyne, And thou, o Mercure^for to help thy pairt I do implore, sen thou by thy ingyne, Nixt efter Pan had found the whissill, syne Thou did perfyte, that whilk he bot espyit : And efter that made Argus for to tyne x (wha kepit lo) all his windois by it. Concur re ye Gods, it can not be deny it : Sen in your airt of Poesie I wryte. Auld birds to learne by teiching it is try it : Sic docens disyans gifye help to dyte.

Then Reidar sie of nature thou have pairt, Syne laikis thou nocht, bot heir to reid the airt.

i lose.

SONNET DECIFRING

THE PERFYTE POETE.

/I NE rype ingyne, ane quick and walkncd ivitt, -**• With sommair reasons, suddenlie applyit, For every purpose using reasons fitt, With skilfulnes, where learning may be spyit, With pit hie wordis, for to expres you by it His full intention in his proper leid? The puritie whairof, weill hes he try it : With memorie to keip what he dots reid, With skilfulnes and figuris, whilks proceid From Rhetorique, with everlasting fame, With uthers woundring, preassing with all speid For to atteine to merite sic a name. All thir 2 into the perfyie Poete be. Goddis, grant I may obteine the Laurell trie.

1 language. 2 these.

THE REVLIS AND CAV-

TELIS TO BE OBSERVIT

and eschewit in Scottis

Poesie.

CAP. I

^IRST, ye sail keip just cullouris, whairof the cautelis are thir.

That ye ryme nocht twyse in ane syllabe. As for exemple, that ye make not prove and reprove ryme together, nor hove for hoveing on hors bak, and behove.

That ye ryme ay to the hinmest [hindmost] lang syllable, (with accent) in the lyne, suppose it be not the hinmest syllabe in the lyne, as bakbyte you, and out flyte [scold] you, It rymes in byte andyfyte, because of the lenth of the syllabe, and accent being there, and not in you, howbeit it be the hinmest syllabe of ather of the lynis. Or question and digestion, It rymes in ques and ges, albeit they be bot the antepenult syllabis, and uther twa behind ilkane of thame.

io REVLIS AND CAVTELIS

Ye aucht alwayis to note, That as in thir foir- saidis, or the lyke wordis, it rymes in the hinmest lang syllabe in the lyne, althoucht there be uther short syllabis behind it, Sa is the hinmest lang syllabe the hinmest fute, suppose there be uther short syllabis behind it, whilkis are eatin up in the pronounceing, and na wayis comptit [counted] as fete.

Ye man be war likewayis (except necessitie compell you) with Ryming in Termis, whilk is to say, that your first or hinmest word in the lyne, exceid not twa or thre syllabis at the maist, using thrie als seindill [seldom] as ye can. The cause whairfore ye sail not place a lang word first in the lyne, is, that all lang words hes ane syllabe in them sa verie lang, as the lenth thairof eatis up in the pronouncing evin the uther syllabes, whilks ar placit lang in the same word, and thairfore spillis the flowing of that lyne. As for exemple, in this word, Arabia, the second syllable (ra) is sa lang, that it eatis up in the prononcing [0], whilk is the hinmest syllabe of the same word. Whilk [a] althocht it be in a lang place, yit it kythis [appears] not sa, because of the great lenth of the preceding syllable (ra). As to the cause why ye sail not put a lang word hinmest in the lyne, It is, because, that the lenth of the secound syllabe (ra) eating up the lenth of the uther lang syllabe, [a] makis it to serve bot as a tayle vnto it, together with the short syllabe preceding. And because this tayle nather servis for cullour

OF SCOTTIS POESIE 11

nor fute, as I spak before, it man [must] be thairfore repetit in the nixt lyne ryming vnto it, as it is set doune in the first : whilk makis, that ye will scarcely get many wordis to ryme vnto it, yea, nane at all will ye finde to ryme to sindrie uther langer wordis. Thairfore cheifly be warre of inserting sic lang wordis hinmest in the lyne, for the cause whilk I last allegit. Besydis that nather first nor last in the lyne, it keipis na Flowing. The reulis and cautelis whairof are thir, as followis.

CHAR II

|IRST, ye man vnderstand that all syllabis are devydit in thrie kindes : That is, some schort, some lang, and some indifferent. Be indif- ferent I meane, they whilk are ather lang or short, according as ye place thame.

The forme of placeing syllabes in verse, is this. That your first syllabe in the lyne be short, the second lang, the thrid short, the fourt lang, the fyft short, the sixt lang, and sa furth to the end of the lyne. Alwayis tak heid, that the nomber of your fete in every lyne be evin, and nocht odde : as four, six, aucht, or ten : and not thrie, fyve, sevin, or nyne, except it be in broken verse, whilkis are out of reul and daylie inventit be dyvers Poetis. Bot gif ye wald ask me the reulis,

12 REVLIS AND CAVTELIS

whairby to knaw everie ane of thir thre foirsaidis kyndis of syllabes, I answer, Your eare man [must] be the onely iudge and discerner thairof. And to prove this, I remit to the iudgement of the same, whilk of thir twa lynis following flowis best,

Into the Sea then Lucifer upsprang.

In the Sea then Lucifer to usprang.

I doubt not bot your eare makkis you easilie to persave, that the first lyne flowis weil, and the uther nathing at all. The reasoun is, because the first lyne keips the reule abone written, to wit, the first fute short, the secound lang, and sa furth, as I shewe before : whair as the uther is direct contrair to the same. Bot specially tak heid, when your lyne is of fourtene, that your Sectioun in aucht [eight] be a lang monosyllabe, or ellis the hinmest syllabe of a word alwais being lang, as I said before. The cause why it man be ane of thir twa, is, for the Musique, because that when your lyne is ather of xiiij or xij fete, it wilbe drawin sa lang in the singing, as ye man rest in the middes of it, whilk is the Sectioun : sa as, gif your Sectioun be nocht ather a mono- syllabe, or ellis the hinmest syllabe of a word, as I said before, bot the first syllabe of a poly- syllabe, the Musique sail make you sa to rest in the middes of that word, as if sail cut the ane half of the word fra the uther, and sa sail mak it seme twa different wordis, that is bot ane. This

OF SCOTTIS POESIE 13

aucht [ought] onely to be observit in thir foirsaid lang lynis : for the shortnes of all shorter lynis, than thir before mentionat, is the cause, that the Musique makis na rest in the middes of thame, and thairfore thir observationis servis nocht for thame. Onely tak heid, that the Sectioun in thame kythe something langer nor any uther feit in that lyne, except the secound and the last, as I have said before.

Ye man tak heid lykewayis, that your langest lynis exceid nochte fourtene fete, and that your shortest be nocht within foure.

Remember also to mak a Sectioun in the middes of every lyne, whether the lyne be lang or short. Be Sectioun I mean, that gif your lyne be of four- tene fete, your aucht fute man not only be langer then the sevint, or uther short fete, but also langer nor any uther lang fete in the same lyne, except the secound and the hinmest. Or gif your lyne be of twelf fete, your Sectioun to be in the sext. Or gif of ten, your Sectioun to be in the sext also. The cause why it is not in fyve, is, because fyve is odde, and everie odde fute is short. Or gif your lyne be of aucht fete, your Sectioun to be in the fourt. Gif of sex, in the fourt also. Gif of four, your Sectioun to be in twa.

Ye aucht likewise be war with oft composing your haill lynis of monosyllabis onely, (albeit our language have sa many, as we can nocht weill eschewe it) because the maist pairt of thame are indifferent, and may be in short or lang place, as

14 REVLIS AND CAVTELIS

ye like. Some wordis of dyvers syllabis are like- wayis indifferent, as

Thairfore, restore. I thairfore^ then.

In the first, thairfore^ (thair) is short, and (fore) is lang : In the uther, (thair) is lang, and (fore) is short, and yit baith flowis alike weill. Bot thir indifferent wordis, composit of dyvers syllabes, are rare, suppose [although], in mono- syllabes, commoun. The cause then, why ane haill lyne aucht nocht to be composit of mono- syllabes only, is, that they being for the maist pairt indifferent, nather the secound, hinmest, nor Scctioun> will be langer nor the other lang fete in the same lyne. Thairfore ye man place a word composit of dyvers syllabes, and not indifferent, ather in the secound, hinmest, or Sectioun, or in all thrie.

Ye man also tak heid, that when thare fallis any short syllabis efter the last lang syllabe in the lyne, that ye repeit thame in the lyne whilk rymis to the uther, even as ye set them downe in the first lyne : as for exempill, ye man not say

Thenfeir nocht Nor heir ocht.

Bot

Then feir nocht Nor heir nocht.

Repeting the same, nochf, in baith the lynis :

OF SCOTTIS POESIE 15

because this syllabe, nocht, nather serving for cullour nor fute, is hot a tayle to the lang fute preceding, and thairfore is repetit lykewayis in the nixt lyne, whilk rymes unto it, evin as it set doun in the first.

There is also a kynde of indifferent wordis, asweill as of syllabis, albeit few in nomber. The nature whairof is, that gif ye place thame in the begynning of a lyne, they are shorter be a fute, nor they are, gif ye place thame hinmest in the lyne, as

Sen patience I man have perforce.

I live in hope with patience.

Ye se there are bot aucht fete in ather of baith thir lynis above written. The cause whairof is, that patience, in the first lyne, in respect it is in the beginning thairof, is bot of twa fete, and in the last lyne, of thrie, in respect it is the hinmest word of that lyne. To knaw and discerne thir kynde of wordis from utheris, your eare man be the onely iudge, as of all the other parts of Flowing, the verie twichestane [touchstone] whair- of is Musique.

I have teachit you now shortly the reulis of JRyming, Fete, and Flowing. There restis yet to teache you the wordis, sentences, and phrasis necessair for a Poete to use in his verse, whilk I have set doun in reulis, as efter followis,

16 REVLIS AND CAVTELIS

CHAP. Ill

JIRST, that in whatsumever ye put in verse, ye put in na wordis, ather metri causa, or yit, for filling furth the nomber of the fete, hot that they be all sa necessare, as ye sould be constrainit to use thame, in cace ye were speiking the same purpose in prose. And thair- fore that your wordis appeare to have cum out willingly, and by nature, and not to have bene thrawin out constrainedly, be compulsioun.

That ye eschew to insert in your verse, a lang rable of mennis names, or names of tounis, or sik [such] uther names. Because it is hard to mak many lang names all placit together, to flow weill. Thairfore when that fallis out in your purpose, ye sail ather put bot twa or thrie of thame in everie lyne, mixing uther wordis amang thame, or ellis specific bot twa or thre of them at all, saying ( With the laif [remainder] of that race) or ( With the rest in thay pairtis,) or sic uther lyke wordis : as for example,

Out through his cairt, vuhair Eous was eik With other thre, whilk Phaeton had drawin.

Ye sie thair is bot ane name there specifeit, to serve for uther thrie of that sorte.

Ye man also take heid to frame your wordis and sentencis according to the mater : As in Flyting

OF SCOTTIS POESIE 17

and Invectives, your wordis to be cuttit short, and hurland over heuch. For thais whilkis are cuttit short, I meane be sic wordis as thir,

Us neir cair, for

/ sail never cair, gif your subiect were of love, or tragedies. Because in thame your words man be drawin lang, whilkis in Flyting man be short.

Ye man lykewayis tak heid, the ye waill [choose] your wordis according to the purpose : As, in ane heich and learnit purpose, to use heich, pithie, and learnit wordis.

Gif your purpose be of love, To use commoun language, with some passionate wordis.

Gif your purpose be of tragicall materis, To use lamentable wordis, with some heich, as ravishit in admiratioun.

Gif your purpose be of landwart effairis, To use corruptit and uplandis wordis.

And finally, whatsumever be your subiect, to use vocabula artis, whairby ye may the mair vivelie represent that persoun, whais pairt ye paint out.

This is likewayis neidfull to be usit in sentences, als weill as in wordis. As gif your subiect be heich and learnit, to use learnit and infallible reasonis, provin be necessities.

Gif your subiect be of love, To use wilfull reasonis, preceding rather from passioun, nor reasoun.

Gif your subiect be of landwart effaris, To use B

i8 REVLIS AND CAVTELIS

sklender reasonis, mixt with grosse ignorance, nather keiping forme nor ordour. And sa furth, ever framing your reasonis, according to the qualitie of your subiect.

Let all your verse be Literal^ sa far as may be, whatsumever kynde they be of, bot speciallie Tumbling verse for flyting. Be Literall I meane, that the maist pairt of your lyne, sail rynne upon a letter, as this tumbling lyne rynnis upon F.

Fetching fude for to feid it fast furth of the Farie.

Ye man observe that thir Tumbling verse flowis not on that fassoun, as utheris dois. For all utheris keipis the reule whilk I gave before, To wit, the first fute short the secound lang, and sa furth. Whair as thir hes twa short, and ane lang throuch all the lyne, when they keip ordour: albeit the maist pairt of thame be out of ordour, and keipis na kynde nor reule of Flowing, and for that cause are callit Tumbling verse : except the short lynis of aucht in the hinder end of the verse, the whilk flowis as uther verses dois, as ye will find in the hinder end of this buke, whair I gave exemple of sindrie kyndis of versis.

OF SCOTTIS POESIE 19

CHAP. IIII

| ARK also thrie speciall ornamentis to verse, whilkis are, Comparisons, Epithetis, and Proverbis.

As for Comparisons, take held that they be sa proper for the subiect, that nather they be over bas, gif your subiect be heich, for then sould your subiect disgrace your Comparisoun, nather your Com- parisoun be heich when your subiect is basse, for then sail your Comparisoun disgrace your subiect. Bot let sic a mutuall correspondence and simili- tude be betwix them, as it may appeare to be a meit Comparisoun for sic a subiect, and sa sail they ilkane decore l uther.

As for Epithetis, It is to descry ve brieflie, en passant, the naturall of everie thing ye speik of, be adding the proper adiective unto it, whairof there are twa fassons. The ane is, to descryve it, be making, a corruptit worde, composit of twa dyvers simple wordis, as

Apollo gyde-Sunne

The uther fasson, is, be Circumlocution, as Apollo reular of the Sunne.

I esteme this last fassoun best, Because it expressis the authoris meaning als weill as the

1 So shall they each adorn the other.

20 REVLIS AND CAVTELIS

uther, and yet makis na corruptit wordis, as the uther dois.

As for the Proverbis, they man be proper for the subiect, to beautifie it, chosen in the same forme as the Comparisoun.

CHAP. V

\ T is also meit, for the better decora- tioun of the verse to use sumtyme the figure of Repetitioun, as

Why Us ioy rang, Why Its noy rang, etc.

Ye sie this word whylis is repetit heir. This forme of repetitioun sometyme usit, decoris the verse very mekle. Yea when it cummis to purpose, it will be cumly to repete sic a word aucht or nyne tymes in a verse.

CHAP. VI

man also be warre with composing ony thing in the same maner, as hes bene ower oft usit of before. As in speciall, gif ye speik of love, be warre ye descryve your Loves makdome [shape], or her fairnes. And siclyke that ye descryve not the morning, and rysing of the Sunne, in the Preface of your verse : for thir thingis are sa oft and dyverslie writtin upon be

OF SCOTTIS IPOESIE 21

Poetis already, that gif ye do the lyke, it will appeare, ye hot imitate, and that it cummis not of your awin Inventioun, whilk is ane of the cheif properteis of ane Poete. Thairfore gif your subiect be to prayse your Love, ye sail rather prayse hir uther qualiteis, nor her fairnes, or hir shaip : or ellis ye sail speik some lytill thing of it, and syne [then] say, that your wittis are sa smal, and your utterance sa barren, that ye can not discryve any part of hir worthelie : remitting alwayis to the Reider, to iudge of hir, in respect sho matches, or rather excellis Venus, or any woman, whome to it sail please you to compaire her. Bot gif your subiect be sic, as ye man speik some thing of the morning, or Sunne rysing, tak heid, that what name ye give to the Sunne, the Mone, or uther starris, the ane tyme, gif ye happin to wryte thairof another tyme, to change thair names. As gif ye call the Sunne Titan, at a tyme, to call him Phoebus or Apollo the uther tyme, and siclyke the Mone, and uther Planettis.

CHAP. VII

> OT sen Invention, is ane of the cheif vertewis in a Poete, it is best that ye invent your awin subiect, your self, and not to compose of sene subiectis. Especially, translating any thing out of uther language, whilk doing, ye not onely essay not your awin ingyne of Inven-

22 REVLIS AND CAVTELIS

tioun, bot be the same meanes, ye are bound, as to a staik, to follow that buikis phrasis, whilk ye translate.

Ye man also be war of wryting any thing of materis of commoun weill, or uther sic grave sene subiectis (except Metaphorically, of manifest treuth opinly knawin, yit nochtwithstanding using it very seindil) because nocht onely ye essay nocht your awin Inventioun, as I spak before, bot lykewayis they are too grave materis, for a Poet to mell in [meddle with]. Bot because ye can not have the Inventioun, except it come of Nature, I remit it thairunto, as the cheif cause, not onely of Inven- ttoun, bot also of all the uther pairtis of Poesie. For airt is onely bot ane help and a remem- braunce to Nature, as I shewe you in the Preface.

CHAP. VIII tuiching the kyndis of versis, mentionat in the Preface

IRST, there is ryme whilk servis onely for lang historeis, and yit are nocht verse As for exemple,

In Mali when that the blissefull

Phoebus bricht,

The lamp of joy, the heavens gemme of licht The goldin cairt, and the etheriall King, With purp our face in Orient dots spring, Maist angel-lyke ascending in his sphere, And birds with all thair heavenlie voces clear e

OF SCOTTIS POESIE 23

Dots mak a siveit and heavinly harmony, And fragrant flours dots spring up lustely : Into this season sweitest of delyte, To walk I had a lusty appetyte.

And sa furth.

II For the descriptioun of Heroique actis, Martiall and knichtly faittis of armes, use this kynde of verse following, callit Heroicall, As

Meik mundane mirrour, myrrie and modest,

Blyth, kynde, and courtes, comelie, dene, and chest,

To all exemplefor thy hones tie,

As richest rose, or rubie, by the rest,

With gracis grave, and gesture maist digest^

Ay to thy honnour alwayis having eye,

Were fassons fliemde? they micht be found in the :

Ofblissings all, be blyth, thou hes the best,

With everie berne belovitfor to be.

H For any heich and grave subiectis, specially drawin out of learnit authouris, use this kynde of verse following, callit Ballat Royal, as

That nicht he ceist, and went to bed, bot greind* Yit fast for day, and thocht the nicht to lang: At last Diana doun her head recleind, Into the sea. Then Lucifer upsprang, Auroras post, whome sho did send amang The leittie cluddsffor to foretell ane hour, Before sho stay her tears, whilk Ovide sang Fell for her love, whilk turnit in a flour.

1 orderly, sober. 2 strange,

desire, longing. < clouds (jet-black).

24 REVLIS AND CAVTELIS

U For tragicall materis, complaintis, or testa- mentis, use this kynde of verse following, callit Troilus verse, as

To thee Echo, and thou to me agane,1 In the desert, amangs the ivods and wells, Whair destinie hes bound the to remane, But company, within the firths and fells, Let us complein, with wofull shoutts and yells, A shaft, a shotter, that our harts hes slane : To thee Echo, and thou to me agane.

U For flyting, or Invectives, use this kynde of verse following, callit Rouncefallis, or Tumbling verse.

In the hinder end of harvest upon Alhallow ene, When our gude nichtbors 2 rydis (nou gif I reid richf] Some bucklit on a benwod? and some on a benef Ay trottandinto troupes fra the twylicht: Some sadland a she ape, all grathed** into grene: Some hotcheand* on a hemp stalk, hovand on a heicht. The king of Far y with the Court of the Elf queue, With many elrage^ Incubus rydand that nicht :

1 All the quotations made in the Treatise have not been identified; but the specimens of 'Troilus verse/ 'Flyting,' ' Commoun verse,' and 'cuttit and broken verse,' are from Alexander Montgomerie, who held a post in the king's service They will be found in the edition of Montgomerie's works, edited for the Scottish Text Society, by Dr. Cranstoun (1887).

2 the fairies. 3 bunwand, hempstalk, ragwort. 4 bean. 5 dressed.

6 mounting with a sudden jerk. The suffix -and =« -ing.

7 elvish.

OF SCOTTIS POESIE 25

There ane elf on ane ape ane unsell1 begat : Besyde a pot baith auld and worne^ This bratshard in ane bus was borne : They f and a monster on the morne^

War^facit nor a Cat?

U For compendious praysing of any bukes, or the authouris thairof, or ony argumentis of uther historeis, whair sundrie sentences, and change of purposis are requyrit, use Sonet verse, of fourtene lynis, and tene fete in every lyne. The exemple whairof, I neid nocht to shaw you, in respect I have set doun twa in the beginning of this treatise.

U In materis of love, use this kynde of verse, whilk we call Commoun verse, as

Whais answer made thame nocht sa glaid

That they sould thus the victors be>

As even the answer whilk I haid

Did greatly toy and confort me :

When lo, this spak Apollo myne,

All that thou seikis, it sail be thyne.

1 worthless creature. 2 worse.

3 This passage thus appears in Montgomerie's Poems : 1 In the hinder end of harvest, on Alhallow even,

When our good neighbours doe ryd, gif I read right,

Some buckled on a bunwand, and some on a been.

Ay trottand in trupes from the twilight ;

Some sadleand a shoe aip all graithed into green,

Some hobland on ane hempstalke, hoveand to the hight.

The King of Pharie, and his court, with the Elfe Queen,

With many elrich Incubus, was rydand that night.

There ane elf, on ane aipe, ane unsell begat,

Into ane Pot, by Pomathorne,

That bratchart in ane busse was borne :

They fand ane monster, on the morne

War faced nor a cat.'

26 REVLIS AND CAVTELIS

U Lyke verse of ten fete, as this foirsaid is of audit, ye may use lykewayis in love materis : as also all kyndis of cuttit and brokin verse, whairof new formes are day lie inventit according to the Poetes pleasour, as

Who, wald have tyrde to heir that tone, Whilk birds corroborat ay abone

Throuch schouting of the Larkis ? They sprang sa heich into the skyes Whill Cupide walknis with the cryis

OfNaturis chapell Clarkis. Then leaving all the Heavins above

He lichted on the eard. Lo ! how that lytill God of love.

Before me then appeard, So myld-lyke

With bow thre quarters skant And chylde-lyke

So moylte1

He lukit lyke a Sant.

And coylie And sa furth.

U This onely kynde of brokin verse abone written, man of necessitie, in thir last short fete, as so moylie and coylie, have bot twa fete and a tayle to ilkane of thame, as ye sie, to gar the cullour and ryme be in the penult syllabe.

U And of thir foirsaidis kyndes of ballatis of haill verse, and not cuttit or brokin as this last is, gif ye lyke to put ane overword till ony of thame, as

1 mildly.

OF SCOTTIS POESIE 27

making the last lyne of the first verse, to be the

last lyne of everie uther verse in that ballat, will

set weill for love materis. Bot besydis thir kyndes

of brokin or cuttit verse, whilks ar inventit daylie

be Poet is, as I shewe before, there are sindrie

kyndes of haill verse, with all thair lynis alyke

lang, whilk I have heir omittit, and tane l bot

onelie thir few kyndes abone specifeit as

the best, whilk may be applyit to ony

kynde of subiect, bot rather to

thir, whairof I have

spokin before.

1 taken.

A

COVNTER

BLASTE TO

Tobacco

Imprinted at London

by R. B.

Anno 1604

UTO THE READER

> S every humane body (deare Countrey men) how wholesome soever, is not- withstanding subject, or at least naturally inclined to some sorts of diseases, or infirmities : so is there no Common-wealth, or Body-politicke, how well governed, or peaceable soever it bee, that lackes the owne popular errors, and naturally enclined corrup- tions : and therefore is it no wonder, although this our Countrey and Common-wealth, though peace- able, though wealthy, though long flourishing in both, be amongst the rest, subiect to the owne naturall infirmities. We are of all Nations the people most loving and most reverently obedient to our Prince, yet are wee (as time hath often borne witnesse) too easie to be seduced to make Rebellion, upon very slight grounds. Our fortunate and oft prooved valour in warres abroad, our heartie and reverent obedience to our Princes at home, hath bred us a long, and a thrice happy peace : Our Peace

32 TO THE READER

hath bred wealth: And Peace and wealth hath brought foorth a generall sluggishness^ which makes us wallow in all sorts of idle delights, and soft delicacies •, the first seedes of the subversion of all great Monarchies. Our Cleargie are become negli- gent and lazie, our Nobilitie and Gentrie prodigal!, and solde to their private delights, Our Lawyers covetous ', our Common-people prodigall and curious ; and generally all sorts of people more carefull for their privat ends, then for their mother the Com- mon-wealth.

For remedie whereof, it is the Kings part (as the proper Phisician of his Politicke-body) to purge it of all those diseases, by Medicines meet e for the same: as by a certain milde, and yet iust forme of govern- ment, to maintaine the Publicke quietnesse, and pre- vent all occasions of Commotion : by the example of his owne Person and Court, to make us all ashamed of our sluggish delicacie, and to stirre us up to the practise againe of all honest exercises, and Martial I shadowes of IVarre ; As likewise by his, and his Courts moderatenesse in Apparell, to make us ashamed of our prodigalitie : By his quicke ad- monitions and carefull overseeing of the Cleargie, to waken them up againe, to be more diligent in their Offices : By the sharp e trial I, and severe punish- ment of the partiall, covetous and bribing Lawyers, to reforme their corruptions ; And generally by the . example of his owne Person, and by the due execu-

TOTHEREADER 33

tion of good Lawes, to reforme and abolish, piece and puce, these old and evill grounded abuses. For this will not bee Opus unius diei, but as every one of these diseases, must from the King receive the owne cure proper for it, so are there some sorts of abuses in Commonwealths, that though they be of so base and contemptible a condition, as they are too low for the Law to looke on, and too meanefor a King to interpone his authoritie, or bend his eye upon : yet are they corruptions, aswell as the great- est of them. So is an Ant an Animal, aswell as an Elephant : so is a Wrenne Avis, aswell as a Swanne, and so is a small dint of the Toothake, a disease aswell as thefearefull Plague is. But for these base sorts of corruption in Common-wealthes, not onely the King, or any inferior Magistrate, but Quilibet e populo may serve to be a Phisician, by discovering and impugning the error, and by per- s wading reformation thereof.

And surely in my opinion, there cannot be a more base, and yet hurtful!, corruption in a Countrey, then is the vile use (or other abuse) of taking Tobacco in this Kingdome, which hath mooved me, shortly to discover the abuses thereof in this follow- ing little Pamphlet.

If any thinke it a light Argument, so is it but a toy that is bestowed upon it. And since the Subiecl is but of Smoke, I thinke the fume of an idle braine, may serve for a sufficient battery against so fumous

34 TO THE READER

and feeble an enemy. If my grounds be found true,

it is all I looke for ; but if they cary the force of

perswasion with them, it is all I can wish, and

more than I can expect. My onely care is, that

you, my deare Countrey-men, may rightly conceive

even by this smallest trifle, of the sinceritie of my

meaning in greater matters, never to spare

any paine, that may tend to the

procuring of your weale

and prosperitie.

A COUNTERBLASTE TO

Tobacco

HAT the manifolde abuses of this vile custome of Tobacco taking, may the better be espied, it is fit, that first you enter into consideration both of the first originall thereof, and like- wise of the reasons of the first entry thereof into this Countrey. For certainely as such customes, that have their first institution either from a godly, necessary, or honorable ground, and are first brought in, by the meanes of some worthy, vertuous, and great Personage, are ever, and most iustly, holden in great and reverent estima- tion and account, by all wise, vertuous, and temperate spirits: So should it by the contrary, iustly bring a great disgrace into that sort of customes, which having their originall from base corruption and barbarity, doe in like sort, make their first entry into a Countrey, by an incon-

36 A COUNTERBLASTS

siderate and childish affectation of Noveltie, as is the true case of the first invention of Tobacco taking, and of the first entry therefore among us. For Tobacco being a common herbe, which (though under divers names) growes almost every where, was first found out by some of the barbarous Indians, to be a Preservative, or Antidot against the Pockes, a filthy disease, whereunto these barbarous people are (as all men know) very much subiect, what through the uncleanly and adust constitution of their bodies, and what through the intemperate heate of their Climat : so that as from them was first brought into Christendome, that most detest- able disease, so from them likewise was brought this use of Tobacco, as a stinking and unsavorie Antidot, for so corrupted and execrable a Maladie, the stinking Suffumigation whereof they yet use against that disease, making so one canker or venime to eate out another.

And now good Countrey men let us (I pray you) consider, what honour or policie can moove us to imitate the barbarous and beastly maners of the wilde, godlesse, and slavish Indians, especi- ally in so vile and stinking a custome ? Shall wee that disdaine to imitate the maners of our neigh- bour France (having the stile of the first Christian Kingdom) and that cannot endure the spirit of the Spaniards (their King being now comparable in largenes of Dominions, to the great Emperor of Turkic) Shall wee, I say, that have bene so long civill and wealthy in Peace, famous and

TO TOBACCO 37

invincible in Warre, fortunate in both, we that have bene ever able to aide any of our neighbours (but never deafed any of their eares with any of our supplications for assistance) shall we, I say, without blushing, abase our selves so farre, as to imitate these beastly Indians, slaves to the Spaniards, refuse to the world, and as yet aliens from the holy Covenant of God ? Why doe we not as well imitate them in walking naked as they doe ? in preferring glasses, feathers, and such toyes, to gclde and precious stones, as they do ? yea why do we not denie God and adore the Devill, as they doe ?

Now to the corrupted basenesse of the first use of this Tobacco, doeth very well agree the foolish and groundlesse first entry thereof into this King- dome. It is not so long since the first entry of this abuse amongst us here, as this present age cannot yet very well remember, both the first Author, and the forme of the first introduction of it amongst us. It was neither brought in by King, great Conquerour, nor learned Doctor of Phisicke.1

With the report of a great discovery for a Conquest, some two or three Savage men, were brought in, together with this Savage custome. But the pitie is, the poore wilde barbarous men died, but that vile barbarous custome is yet alive, yea in fresh vigor; so as it seemes a miracle to

1 Cf. Note A. p. 55.

38 A COUNTERBLASTE

me, how a custome springing from so vile a ground, and brought in by a father so generally hated, should be welcomed upon so slender a warrant. For if they that first put it in practise heere, had remembred for what respect it was used by them from whence it came, I am sure they would have bene loath, to have taken so farre the imputation of that disease upon them as they did, by using the cure thereof. For Sanis non est opus medico, and counter - poisons are never used, but where poyson is thought to precede.

But since it is true, that divers customes slightly grounded, and with no better warrant entred in a Commonwealth, may yet in the use of them there- after, proove both necessary and profitable ; it is therefore next to be examined, if there be not a full Sympathie and true Proportion, betweene the base ground and foolish entrie, and the loathsome, and hurtfull use of this stinking Antidote.

I am now therefore heartily to pray you to consider, first upon what false and erroneous grounds you have first built the generall good liking thereof; and next, what sinnes towards God, and foolish vanities before the world you commit, in the detestable use of it.

As for these deceitfull grounds, that have specially mooved you to take a good and great conceit thereof, I shall content my selfe to examine here onely foure of the principals of them ; two founded upon the Theoricke of a

TO TOBACCO 39

deceivable apparance of Reason, and two of them upon the mistaken Practicke of generall Experience.

First, it is thought by you a sure Aphorisme in the Physickes,1 That the braines of all men, beeing naturally colde and wet, all dry and hote things should be good for them ; of which nature this stinking suffumigation is, and therefore of good use to them. Of this Argument, both the Proposition and Assumption are false, and so the Conclusion cannot but be voyd of it selfe. For as to the Proposition, That because the braines are colde and moist, therefore things that are hote and drie are best for them, it is an inept consequence : For man beeing compounded of the foure Complexions, (whose fathers are the foure Elements) although there be a mixture of them all in all the parts of his body, yet must the divers parts of our Microcosms or little world within our selves, be diversly more inclined, some to one, some to another complexion, according to the diversitie of their uses, that of these discords a perfect harmonic may bee made up for the maintenance of the whole body.

The application then of a thing of a contrary nature, to any of these parts, is to interrupt them of their due function, and by consequence hurtfull to the health of the whole body. As if a man, because the Liver is hote (as the fountaine of blood)

1 Cf. Note B. p. 55.

40 A COUNTERBLASTS

and as it were an oven to the stomacke, would therfore apply and weare close upon his Liver and stomacke a cake of lead ; he might within a very short time (I hope) be susteined very good cheape at an Ordinarie, beside the cleering of his con- science from that deadly sinne of gluttonie. And as if, because the Heart is full of vital spirits, and in perpetuall motion, a man would therefore lay a heavy pound stone on his breast, for staying and holding downe that wanton palpitation, I doubt not but his breast would bee more bruised with the weight thereof, then the heart would be comforted with such a disagreeable and contrari- ous cure. And even so is it with the Braines. For if a man, because the Braines are colde and humide, would therefore use inwardly by smells, or outwardly by application, things of hot and drie qualitie, all the gaine that he could make thereof, would onely be to put himselfe in a great forwardnesse for running mad, by over-watching himselfe, the coldnesse and moistnesse of our braine beeing the onely ordinarie meanes that procure our sleepe and rest. Indeed I do not denie, but when it falls out that any of these, or any part of our bodie growes to be distempered, and to tend to an extremitie, beyond the compasse of Natures temperate mixture, that in that case cures of contrary qualities, to the intemperate inclination of that part, being wisely prepared and discreetely ministered, may be both neces- sarie and helpefull for strengthning and assisting

TO TOBACCO 41

Nature in the expulsion of her enemies : for this is the true definition of all profitable Physicke.

But first these Cures ought not to bee used, but where there is neede of them, the contrarie whereof, is daily practised in this generall use of Tobacco by all sorts and complexions of people.

And next, I deny the Minor of this argument, as I have already said, in regard that this Tobacco, is not simply of a dry and hot qualitie; but rather hath a certaine venemous facultie ioyned with the heate thereof, which makes it have an Antipathic against nature, as by the hatefull smell thereof doeth well appeare. For the Nose being the proper Organ and convoy of the sense of smelling to the braines, which are the onely fountaine of that sense, doeth ever serve us for an infallible witnesse, whether that Odour which we smell, be healthfull or hurtfull to the braine (except when it fals out that the sense it selfe is corrupted and abused through some infirmitie, and distemper in the braine). And that the suffu- migation thereof cannot have a drying qualitie, it needes no further probation, then that it is a smoake, all smoake and vapour, being of it selfe humide, as drawing neere to the nature of the ayre, and easie to be resolved againe into water, whereof there needes no other proofe but the Meteors, which being bred of nothing else but of the vapours and exhalations sucked up by the Sunne out of the earth, the Sea, and waters yet are the same smoakie vapours turned, and trans-

42 A COUNTERBLASTS

formed into Raynes, Snowes, Deawes, hoare Frostes, and such like waterie Meteors, as by the contrarie the raynie cloudes are often trans- formed and evaporated in blustering winds.

The second Argument grounded on a show of reason is, That this filthie smoake, aswell through the heat and strength thereof, as by a naturall force and qualitie, is able and fit to purge both the head and stomacke of Rhewmes and distilla- tions, as experience teacheth, by the spitting and avoyding fleame, immeadiately after the taking of it. But the fallacie of this Argument may easily appeare, by my late preceding description of the Meteors. For even as the smoakie vapours sucked up by the Sunne, and staied in the lowest and colde Region of the ayre, are there con- tracted into cloudes and turned into raine and such other watery Meteors : So this stinking smoake being sucked up by the Nose, and im- prisoned in the colde and moyst braines, is by their colde and wett facultie, turned and cast foorth againe in waterie distillations, and so are you made free and purged of nothing, but that wherewith you wilfully burdened your selves : and therefore are you no wiser in taking Tobacco for purging you of distillations, then if for preventing the Cholike you would take all kinde of windie meates and drinkes, and for preventing of the Stone, you would take all kinde of meates and drinkes that would breede gravell in the Kidneyes, and then when you were forced to avoyde much

TO TOBACCO 43

winde out of your stomacke, and much gravell in your Vrine, that you should attribute the thanke thereof to such nourishments as bred those within you, that behoved either to be expelled by the force of Nature, or you to have burst at the broad side, as the Proverbe is.

As for the other two reasons founded upon experience, the first of which is, That the whole people would not have taken so generall a good liking thereof, if they had not by experience found it verie soveraigne and good for them : For answere thereunto how easily the mindes of any people, wherewith God hath replenished this world, may be drawen to the foolish affectation of any noveltie, I leave it to the discreet iudgement of any man that is reasonable.

Doe we not dayly see, that a man can no sooner bring over from beyond the Seas any new forme of apparell, but that hee can not bee thought a man of spirit, that would not presently imitate the same? And so from hand to hand it spreades, till it be practised by all, not for any commoditie that is in it, but only because it is come to be the fashion. For such is the force of that naturall Selfe-love in every one of us, and such is the corruption of envie bred in the brest of every one, as we cannot be content unlesse we imitate every thing that our fellowes doe, and so proove our selves capable of every thing whereof they are capable, like Apes, counterfeiting the maners of others, to our owne destruction. For

44 A COUNTERBLASTE

let one or two of the greatest Masters of Mathe- matickes in any of the two famous Vniversities, but constantly affirme any cleare day, that they see some strange apparition in the skies : they will I warrant you be seconded by the greatest part of the Students in that profession : So loath will they be, to bee thought inferiour to their fellowes, either in depth of knowledge or sharp- nesse of sight : And therefore the generall good liking and imbracing of this foolish custome, doeth but onely proceede from that affectation of noveltie, and popular errour, whereof I have already spoken.

The other argument drawen from a mistaken experience, is but the more particular probation of this generall, because it is alleaged to be found true by proofe, that by the taking of Tobacco divers and very many doe fmde themselves cured of divers diseases as on the other part, no man ever received harme thereby. In this argument there is first a great mistaking and next a monstrous absurditie. For is it not a very great mistaking, to take Non causam pro causa ^ as they say in the Logicks ? because peradventure when a sicke man hath had his disease at the height, hee hath at that instant taken Tobacco, and after- ward his disease taking the naturall course of declining, and consequently the patient of re- covering his health, O then the Tobacco forsooth, was the worker of that miracle. Beside that, it is a thing well knowen to all Phisicians, that the

TO TOBACCO 45

apprehension and conceit of the patient hath by wakening and uniting the vitall spirits, and so strengthening nature, a great power and vertue, to cure divers diseases. For an evident proofe of mistaking in the like case, I pray you what foolish boy, what sillie wench, what olde doting wife, or ignorant countrey clowne, is not a Phisician for the toothach, for the cholicke, and divers such common diseases? Yea, will not every man you meete withal, teach you a sundry cure for the same, and sweare by that meane either himselfe, or some of his neerest kinsmen and friends was cured ? And yet I hope no man is so foolish as to beleeve them.. And al these toyes do only proceed from the mistaking Non causam pro causa, as I have already sayd, and so if a man chance to recover one of any disease, after he hath taken Tobacco, that must have the thankes of all. But by the contrary, if a man smoke himselfe to death with it (and many have done) O then some other disease must beare the blame for that fault. . . . And so doe olde drunkards thinke they prolong their dayes, by their swinelike diet, but never remember howe many die drowned in drinke before they be halfe olde.

And what greater absurditie can there bee, then to say that one cure shall serve for divers, nay, contrarious sortes of diseases ? It is an un- doubted ground among all Phisicians, that there is almost no sort either of nourishment or

46 A COUNTERBLASTS

medicine, that hath not some thing in it dis- agreeable to some part of mans bodie, because, as I have already sayd, the nature of the tempera- ture of every part, is so different from another, that according to the olde proverbe, That which is good for the head, is evill for the necke and the shoulders. For even as a strong enemie, that invades a towne or fortresse, although in his siege thereof, he do belaie and compasse it round about, yet he makes his breach and entrie, at some one or few special parts thereof, which hee hath tried and found to bee weakest and least able to resist : so sickenesse doth make her particular assault, upon such part or parts of our bodie, as are weakest and easiest to be overcome by that sort of disease, which then doth assaile us, although all the rest of the body by Sympathie feele it selfe, to be as it were belaied, and besieged by the affliction of that speciall part, the griefe and smart thereof being by the sence of feeling dis- persed through all the rest of our members. And therefore the skilfull Phisician presses by such cures, to purge and strengthen that part which is afflicted, as are only fit for that sort of disease, and doe best agree with the nature of that infirme part ; which being abused to a disease of another nature, would proove as hurtfull for the one, as helpfull for the other. Yea, not only will a skilfull and warie Phisician bee carefull to use no cure but that which is fit for that sort of disease, but he wil also consider all ot^er circumstances, and

TO TOBACCO 47

make the remedies salable thereunto : as the temperature of the clime where the Patient is, the constitution of the Planets, the time of the Moone, the season of the yere, the age and com- plexion of the Patient, and the present state of his body, in strength or weakenesse. For one cure must not ever be used for the self-same disease, but according to the varying of any of the foresaid circumstances, that sort of remedie must be used which is fittest for the same. Whear by the contrarie in this case, such is the miracu- lous omnipotencie of our strong tasted Tobacco, as it cures all sorts of diseases (which never any drugge could do before) in all persons, and at all times. It cures all maner of distillations, either in the head or stomacke (if you beleeve their Axiomes) although in very deede it doe both corrupt the braine, and by causing over quicke disgestion, fill the stomacke full of crudities. It cures the Gowt in the feet, and (which is miracu- lous) in that very instant when the smoke thereof, as light, flies up into the head, the vertue thereof, as heavie, runs downe to the little toe. It helpes all sorts of Agues. It makes a man sober that was drunke. It refreshes a weary man, and yet makes a man hungry. Being taken when they goe to bed, it makes one sleepe soundly, and yet being taken when a man is sleepie and drowsie, it will, as they say, awake his braine, and quicken his understanding. As for curing of the Pockes, it serves for that use but among the pockie Indian

48 A COUNTERBLASTE

slaves. Here in England it is refined, and will not deigne to cure heere any other then cleanly and gentlemanly diseases. O omnipotent power of Tobacco \ And if it could by the smoke thereof chace out devils, as the smoke of Tobias fish did (which I am sure could smel no stronglier) it would serve for a precious Relicke, both for the superstitious Priests, and the insolent Puritanes, to cast out devils withall.

"""Admitting then, and not confessing that the use thereof were healthfull for some sortes of diseases; should it be used for all sicknesses? should it be used by all men? should it be used at al times ? yea should it be used by able, yong, strong, healthful men ? Medicine hath that vertue, that it never leaveth a man in that state wherin it findeth him: it makes a sicke man whole, but a whole man sicke. And as Medicine helpes nature being taken at times of necessitie, so being ever and continually used, it doth but weaken, wearie, and weare nature, What speake I of Medicine ? Nay let a man every houre of the day, or as oft as many in this countrey use to take Tobacco, let a man I say, but take as oft the best sorts of nourishments in meate and drinke that can bee devised, hee shall with the con- tinuall use thereof weaken both his head and his stomacke : all his members shall become feeble, his spirits dull, and in the end, as a drowsie lazie belly-god, he shall evanish in a Lethargic.

TO TOBACCO 49

And from this weaknesse it proceeds, that many in this kingdome have had such a con- tinuall use of taking this unsavorie smoke, as now they are not able to forbeare the same, no more then an olde drunkard can abide to be long sober, without falling into an uncurable weakenesse and evill constitution : for their continuall custome hath made to them, habitum^ alterant naturam : so to those that from their birth have bene con- tinually nourished upon poison and things venem- ous, wholesome meates are onely poisonable.

Thus having, as I truste, sufficiently answered the most principall arguments that are used in defence of this vile custome, it rests onely to informe you what sinnes and vanities you commit in the filthie abuse thereof. First, are you not guiltie of sinnefull and shamefull lust? (for lust may bee as well in any of the senses as in feeling) that although you bee troubled with no disease, but in perfect health, yet can you neither be merry at an Ordinarie, nor lascivious in the Stewes, if you lack Tobacco to provoke your appetite to any of those sorts of recreation, lust- ing after it as the children of Israel did in the wildernesse after Quailes ? Secondly it is, as you use or rather abuse it, a branche of the sinne of drunkennesse, which is the roote of all sinnes : for as the onely delight that drunkards take in Wine is in the strength of the taste, and the force of the fume thereof that mounts up to the braine : for no drunkards love any weake, or sweete drinke : D

50 A COUNTERBLASTE

so are not those (I meane the strong heate and the fume) the onely qualities that make Tobacco so delectable to all the lovers of it ? And as no man likes strong headie drinke the first day (because nemo repente fit turpissimus) but by custome is piece and piece allured, while in the ende, a drunkard will have as great a thirst to bee drunke, as a sober man to quench his thirst with a draught when hee hath need of it: So is not this the very case of all the great takers of Tobacco ? which therefore they themselves do attribute to a bewitching qualitie in it. Thirdly, is it not the greatest sinne of all, that you the people of all sortes of this Kingdome, who are created and ordeined by God to bestowe both your persons and goods for the maintenance both of the honour and safetie of your King and Commonwealth, should disable your selves in both ? In your persons having by this continuall vile custome brought your selves to this shameful imbecilitie, that you are not able to ride or walke the iourney of a lewes Sabboth, but you must have a reekie cole brought you from the next poore house to kindle your Tobacco with ? whereas he cannot be thought able for any service in the warres, that cannot endure oftentimes the want of meate, drinke and sleepe, much more then must hee endure the want of Tobacco. In the times of the many glorious and victorious battailes fought by this Nation, there was no word of Tobacco. But now if it were time of warres, and that you

TO TOBACCO 51

were to make some sudden Cavalcado upon your enemies, if any of you should seeke leisure to stay behinde his fellowe for taking of Tobacco, for my part I should never bee sorie for any evill chance that might befall him. To take a custome in any thing that cannot bee left againe, is most harmefull to the people of any land. Mollicies and delicacie were the wracke and overthrow, first of the Persian, and next of the Romane Empire. And this very custome of taking Tobacco (whereof our present purpose is) is even at this day accounted so effeminate among the Indians themselves, as in the market they will offer no price for a slave to be sold, whom they finde to be a great Tobacco taker.

Now how you are by this custome disabled in your goods, let the Gentry of this lande beare witnesse, some of them bestowing three, some foure hundred pounds a yeere upon this precious stinke, which I am sure might be bestowed upon many farre better uses. I read indeede of a knavish Courtier, who for abusing the favour of the Emperour Alexander Severus his Master by taking bribes to intercede, for sundry persons in his Masters eare, (for whom he never once opened his mouth) was iustly choked with smoke, with this doome, Fnmo pereat, quifumum vendidit : but so many smoke-buyers, as are at this present in this kingdome, I never read nor heard.

And for the vanities committed in this filthie custome, is it not both great vanitie and uncleane-

52 A COUNTERBLASTE

nesse, that at the table, a place of respect, of cleanlinesse, of modestie, men should not be ashamed, to sit tossing of Tobacco pipes, and puffing of the smoke of Tobacco one to another, making the filthy smoke and stinke thereof, to exhale athwart the dishes, and infect the aire, when very often, men that abhorre it are at their repast? Surely Smoke becomes a kitchin far better then a Dining chamber, and yet it makes a kitchin also oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soiling and infecting them, with an unctuous and oily kinde of Soote, as hath bene found in some great Tobacco takers, that after their death were opened. And not onely meate time, but no other time nor action is exempted from the publike use of this uncivill tricke : so as if the wives of Diepe list to contest with this Nation for good maners their worst maners would in all reason be found at least not so dishonest (as ours are) in this point. The publike use whereof, at all times, and in all places, hath now so farre prevailed, as divers men very sound both in iudgement, and complexion, have bene at last forced to take it also without desire, partly because they were ashamed to seeme singular, (like the two Philosophers that were forced to duck them- selves in that raine water, and so become fooles aswell as the rest of the people) and partly, to be as one that was content to eate Garlicke (which hee did not love) that he might not be troubled with the smell of it, in the breath of his fellowes.

TO TOBACCO 53

And is it not a great vanitie, that a man cannot heartily welcome his friend now, but straight they must bee in hand with Tobacco ? No it is become in place of a cure, a point of good fellowship, and he that will refuse to take a pipe of Tobacco among his fellowes, (though by his own election he would rather feel the savour of a Sinke) is accounted peevish and no good company, even as they doe with tippeling in the cold Easterne Countries. Yea the Mistresse cannot in a more manerly kinde, entertaine her servant, then by giving him out of her faire hand a pipe of Tobacco. But herein is not onely a great vanitie, but a great contempt of Gods good giftes, that the sweetenesse of mans breath, being a good gift of God, should be willfully corrupted by this stink- ing smoke, wherein I must confesse, it hath too strong a vertue : and so that which is an ornament of nature, and can neither by any artifice be at the first acquired, nor once lost, be recovered againe, shall be filthily corrupted with an incur- able stinke, which vile qualitie is as directly contrary to that wrong opinion which is holden of the wholesomnesse thereof, as the venime of putrifaction is contrary to the vertue Pre- servative.

Moreover, which is a great iniquitie, and against all humanitie, the husband shall not bee ashamed, to reduce thereby his delicate, wholesome, and cleane complexioned wife, to that extremitie, that either shee must also corrupt her sweete breath

54 A COUNTERBLASTE

therewith, or else resolve to live in a perpetuall staking torment.

/ Have you not reason then to bee ashamed, and to forbeare this filthie noveltie, so basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossely mistaken in the right use thereof? In your abuse thereof sinning against God, harming your selves both in persons and goods, and raking also thereby the markes and notes of vanitie upon you : by the custome thereof making your selves to be won- dered at by all forraine civil Nations, and by all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned. A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, danger- ous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse.

NOTES

NOTE A. THE INTRODUCTION OF TOBACCO

Professor Arber has printed, in his edition of the Coun- terblastCy some forty pages of extracts with reference to the introduction of tobacco into England, and we propose to give here only a brief summary of the facts. John Nicot, who was French ambassador in Portugal, seems to have introduced it into France about 1560 (whence the name * Nicotine '), and Sir John Hawkins brought it to England about five years later. It was certainly known in England for a considerable time before Raleigh returned from his first voyage to Virginia in 1584. We have no evidence that Raleigh brought any tobacco with him. A subsequent expedition, which went out under Ralph Lane in 1585 and returned with Drake in 1586, learned the habit of tobacco- smoking, and did much to spread it in this country. A general tradition connects the popularisation of the custom with the name of Sir Walter Raleigh. The earliest refer- ence to Raleigh's responsibility in the matter is the passage in the Counterblasts (p. 37), where King James says : ' It was neither brought in by King, great Conqueror, nor learned Doctor of Phisicke . . . [but] by a father so generally hated.' James was, of course, glad of the op- portunity of denouncing the unfortunate Raleigh. The Counterblaste is evidence of the rapid growth of the habit.

NOTE B. THE MEDICINAL USE OF TOBACCO

Tobacco was, at first, imagined to possess valuable medi- cinal properties. Nicot, who had received the herb ' as a strange Plant brought from Florida,' found that his servants

56 NOTES

used it for ulcers ; and when his cook had made a deep gash in his thumb, they * ran to the said Nicotiane, and dressed him therewith five or sixe tymes, and so in the ende thereof he was healed. ' Thomas Hariot, the mathematician, who was one of Lane's company of a hundred and three adven- turers, published in 1588 a description of Virginia, in which he said : * The leaves [of tobacco] being dried and brought into powder, they use to take the fume or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of claie into their stomacke and heade ; from whence it purgeth superfluous fleame and other grosse humours, openeth all the pores and passages of the body . . . whereby their bodies are notably preserved in health, and know not many greevous diseases wherewithall wee in England are oftentimes afflicted. . . . We ourselves during the time we were there used to suck it after their maner, as also since our returne, and have found manie rare and wonderful experiments of the vertues thereof.' There was thus good reason for King James's devoting a portion of his argument to the medicinal uses of tobacco ; but his treatment of the topic contains obvious exaggerations. The references to the medical phraseology of the time possess considerable in- terest, and the reader may compare them with Francis Bacon's physical speculations. The medical ideas found in the Counterblaste appear in Sir Thomas Elyot's Castle of Health, published originally in 1541, which attained a wide popularity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Elyot was not a professional doctor, and his book illustrates educated lay opinion of the time. The body (cf. Counter- blaste> p. 39) was composed of * the foure complexions, whose fathers are the foure elements,' Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Elyot defines 'Complexion' as *a combination of two divers qualities of the foure elements in one body, as hot and dry of the fyre, hot and moiste of the ayre, cold and drye of the Earth. But although all these complexions be assembled in every body of a man and woman, yet the body taketh his denomination of those qualities which

NOTES 57

abounde in him, more than in the other, as hereafter insueth : — The body where heate and moisture have sover- aintee is called Sanguine, wherein the ayre hath pre- heminence. . . . Where cold with moisture prevaileth, that body is called fleumatick [phlegmatick], wherein water hath preheminence. Cholerike is hote and d rye, in whom the fyre hath preheminence. . . . Melancholike is colde and drye, over whom the earth hath Dominion. . . . Besides these sayde complexions of all the hole body ther be in the particu- lar membres, complexion, wherein if there be anye distem- perance, it bringeth sicknes or griefe into the member. . . . Some distemperatures be simple and some be compound. They which be simple bee in simple qualities as heate and moisture, heate and drith, colde and moyst, colde and drye.' Cf. also Tryon (Way to Health}, who describes a com- plexion as 'a combination of two dyvers qualities of the foure elements in one body, as hotte and drye of the Fyre, hotte and moyste of the Ayre.'

Elyot also describes the four humours (cf. Counterblaste, p. 39) : * In the bodye of man bee foure principall humours, which continuing in the proportion that nature hath limitted, the body is fre from all sickenes. Contrary wyse, by the in- crease or diminution of anye of them, in quantitye or qualitye, over or under their natural assignment, unequal tempera- ture commeth into the body, which sickenes followeth, more or lesse according to the lapse or decaye of the temperatures of the said humour, which are these follow- ing : — Bloude, Fleame, Choler, Melancholy.' Elyot agrees with James that * cures of contrary qualities may be both necessarie and helpefull' (p. 40), and gives a list of meats suitable for this purpose, e.g. ( Colde meates asswageth burning of choler. . . . Dry meates consumeth superfluous moisture.' The other medical allusions will explain them- selves. The reference to counter-poysons on p. 38 is con- nected with the belief that every poison may be rendered harmless by the application of some counter-poison. The influence of Alchemy is seen in the reference to the planets

58 NOTES

and the time of the year as affecting medical treatment (p. 47). Elyot tells us that from December to March 'reumes and moisture do increase and then meates and drinkes naturally very hotte should be moderately used.' These ideas do not represent the more advanced medicine of the day. They are all mediaeval, and are largely of Greek origin.

There is a considerable amount of early literature on the subject of Tobacco, and Ben Jonson has a well-known reference to it in Every Man in His Humour (Act iii. Sc. 2). King James did not confine his crusade against it to literary methods of assault, but, in 1604, issued a Proclamation on the subject and taxed it heavily : —

' JAMES, by the Grace of God, etc., to our right Trustie and right Welbeloved Cousen and Counsellor, Thomas Earle of Dorset our High Treasourer of Englande, Greet- inge.

' Whereas Tabaccoy being a Drugge of late Yeres found out, and by Merchants, as well Denizens as Strangers, brought from forreign Partes in small quantitie into this Realm of England and other our Dominions, was used and taken by the better sort both then and nowe onelye as Phisicke to preserve Healthe, and is now at this Day, through evell Custome and the Toleration thereof, exces- sivelie taken by a nomber of ryotous and disordered Persons of meane and base Condition, whoe, contrarie to the use which Persons of good Callinge and Qualitye make thereof, doe spend most of there tyme in that idle Vanitie, to the evill example and corrupting of others, and also do consume that Wages whiche manye of them gett by theire Labour, and wherewith there Families should be releived, not caring at what Price they buye that Drugge, but rather devisinge how to add to it other Mixture, therebye to make it the more delightfull to their Taste, though so much the more costly to there Purse ; by which great and imoderate takinge of Tabacco the Health of a great nomber of our People is impayred, and theire Bodies weakened and made unfit for

NOTES 59

Labor, the Estates of many mean Persons soe decayed and consumed as they are thereby dryven to unthriftie Shifts onelie to maynteyne their gluttonous exercise thereof, besides that also a great part of the Treasure of our Lande is spent and exhausted by this onely Drugge so licentiously abused by the meaner sorte, all which enormous Incon- veniences ensuinge thereuppon We doe well perceave to proceed principally from the great quantitie of Tabacco daily brought into this our Realm of England and Dominions of Wales from the Partes beyond the Seas by Merchauntes and others, which Excesse We conceave might in great part be restrayned by some good Imposition to be laid uppon it, whereby it is likelie that a lesse Quantitie of Tabacco will hereafter be broughte into this our Realm of England, Dominion of Wales and Town of Barwick then in former tymes, and yet sufficient store to serve for their necessarie use who are of the better sort, and have and will use the same with Moderation to preserve their Healthe :

' We do therefore will and command you our Treasurer of Englande, and herebye also warrant and aucthorise you to geve order co all Customers Comptrollers Searchers Sur- veyors, and all other Officers of our Portes, that, from and after the sixe and twentith Day of October next comynge, they shall demaunde and take to our use of all Merchauntes, as well Englishe as Strangers, and of all others whoe shall bringe in anye Tabacco into this Realme, within any Porte Haven or Creek belonging to any theire severall Charges, the Somme of Six Shillings and eighte Pence uppon everye Pound Waight thereof, over and above the Custome of Twoo Pence uppon the Pounde Waighte usuallye paide heretofore. . . .'

THE ESSAYES OF

A PRENTISE, IN THE DIVINE ART OF

POESIE

Imprinted at Edinburgh, by Thomas

Vautroullier

1585

CVM PRIVILEGIO

REGALI

ANE QVADRAIN OF

ALEXANDRIN VERSE

T MMORTALL Gods, sen I with pen and Poets 1 airt So willingly hes servde you, though my skill be

small,

I pray then everie one of you to help his pairt, In graunting this my sute, which after follow shall.

SONNET

i

THIRST Iove> as greatest God above the rest, r Graunt thou to me a pairt of my desyre : That when in verse of thee I write my best, This onely thing I earnestly requyre, That thou my veine Poetique so inspyre, As they may suirlie think, all that it reid, When I descryve thy might and thundring fyre, That they do see thy self in verie deid From heaven thy greatest Thunders for to leid, And syne upon the Gyants heads to fall : Or cumming to thy Semele with speid In Thunders least, at her request and call :

Or throwing Phaethon downe from heaven to card.

With threatning thunders, making monstrous reard.

64 SONNETS

SONNET

A POLLO nixt, assist me in a parte, *" Sen unto 700* thou secound art in might, That when I do descryve thy shyning Carte, The Readers may esteme it in their sight. And graunt me als, thou worlds 6 onely light, That when I lyke for subiect to devyse To wryte, how as before thy countenaunce bright The yeares do stand, -with seasons dowble twyse. That so I may descryve the verie guyse Thus by thy help, of yeares wherein we live : As Readers syne may say, heir surely lyes, Of seasons fowre, the glasse and picture vive. Grant als, that so I may my verses warpe, As thou may play them syne upon thy Harpe.

SONNETS 65

SONNET

AND first, 6 Phwbus, when I do descrive The Springtyme sproutar of the herbes and

flowris,

Whome with in rank none of the foure do strive, But nearest thee do stande all tymes and howris : Graunt Readers may esteme, they sie thy showris, Whose balmie dropps so softlie dois distell, Which watrie cloudds in mesure suche downe

powris,

As makis the herbis, and verie earth to smell With savours sweit, fra tyme that onis thysell The vapouris softlie sowkis with smyling cheare, Whilks syne in cloudds are keiped closs and well, Whill vehement Winter come in tyme of yeare. Graunt, when I lyke the Springtyme to displaye. That Readers think they sie the Spring alwaye.

66 SONNETS

SONNET

AND graunt that I may so vively put in verse The Sommtr, when I lyke theirof to treat : As when in writ I do theirof reherse, Let Readers think they fele the burning heat, And graithly see the earth, for lacke of weit, With withering drouth and Sunne so gaigged all, As for the grasse on feild, the dust in streit Doth ryse and flee aloft, long or it fall. Yea, let them think, they heare the song and call, Which Floras wingde musicians maks to sound. And that to taste, and smell, beleve they shall Delicious fruictis, whilks in that tyme abound. And shortly, all their senses so bereaved, As eyes and earis, and all may be deceaved.

SONNETS 67

SONNET

OR when I lyke my pen for to imploy Of fertile Harvest in the description trew : Let Readers think, they instantly convoy The busie shearers for to reap their dew, By cutting rypest comes with hookes anew : Which cornes their heavy heads did dounward

bow,

Els seking earth againe, from whence they grew, And unto Ceres do their service vow. Let Readers also surely think and trow, They see the painfull Vigneron pull the grapes : First tramping them, and after pressing now The grenest clusters gathered into heapes.

Let then the Harvest so vive to them appeare, As if they saw both cornes and clusters neare.

68 SONNETS

SONNET 6

BVT let them think, in verie deid they feill, When as I do the Winters stormes unfolde, The bitter frosts, which waters dois congeill In Winter season, by a pearsing colde. And that they heare the whiddering Boreas bolde, With hiddeous hurling, rolling Rocks from hie. Or let them think, they see god Saturne olde, Whose hoarie haire owercovering earth, maks flie The lytle birds in flocks, fra tyme they see The earth and all with stormes of snow owercled : Yea let them think, they heare the birds that die, Make piteous mone, that Saturms hairis are spred. Apollo^ graunt thir foirsaid suitis of myne, All fyve I say, that thou may crowne me syne.

SONNETS 69

SONNET

7

AND when I do descrive the Oceans force, Graunt syne, 6 Neptune^ god of seas

profound,

That readars think on leebord, and on dworce, And how the Seas owerflowed this massive round : Yea, let them think, they heare a stormy sound, Which threatnis wind, and darknes come at

hand :

And water in their shipps syne to abound, By weltring waves, lyke hyest towres on land. Then let them thinke their shipp now low on sand, Now climmes and skippes to top of rageing seas, Now downe to hell, when shippmen may not

stand,

But lifts their hands to pray thee for some eas. Syne let them think thy Trident doth it calme, Which maks it cleare and smothe lyke glas or alme.

70 SONNETS

SONNET

AND graunt the lyke when as the swimming sort

Of all thy subiects skaled I list declare : As Triton monster with a manly port, Who drownd the Troy an trumpetour most raire : As Mar maids wyse, who wepis in wether faire : And marvelous Monkis, I meane Monkis of the see. Bot what of monsters, when I looke and staire On wounderous heapes of subjectis serving the ? As whailes so huge, and Sea eylis rare, that be Myle longs, in crawling cruikis of sixtie pace : And Daulphins, Seahorse, Selchs with oxin ee, And MerswyniS) Petrikis als of fishes race. In short, no fowle doth flie, nor beast doth go, But thow hast fishes lyke to them and mo.

SONNETS 71

SONNET

ODREIDFULL Pluto, brother thrid to love, With Proserpin, thy wife, the quene of

hell:

My sute to you is, when I like to loave The ioyes that do in Elise field excell : Or when I like great Tragedies to tell : Or flyte, or murne my fate: or wryte with feare The plagues ye do send furth with Dirce. fell. Let Readers think, that both they see and heare Alecto, threatning Turnus sister deare : And heare Celanos wings, with Harpyes all : And see dog Cerberus rage with hiddeous beare, And all that did ALneas once befall.

When as he past throw all those dungeons dim, The foresaid feilds syne visited by him. -

72 SONNETS

SONNET 10

O FURIOUS Mars, thow warlyke souldiour bold,

And hardy Pallas^ goddess stout and grave : Let Reidars think, when combats manyfold I do descrive, they see two champions brave, With armies huge approching to resave Thy will, with cloudds of dust into the air. Syne Phifers, Drummes, and Trumpets cleir do

crave

The pelmell chok with larum loude alwhair, Then nothing hard but gunnis, and ratling sair Of speares, and clincking swords with glaunce so

cleir,

As if they foght in skyes, then wrangles thair Men killd, unkilld, whill Parcas breath reteir. There lyes the venquisht wailing sore his

chaunce : There lyes the victor, rewing els the daunce.

SONNETS 73

SONNET ii

AND at your handis I earnestly do crave, O facound Mercure^ with the Muses nyne, That for conducting guyde I may you have, Aswell unto my pen, as my Ingyne. Let Readers think, thy eloquence devyne O Mercure, in my Poems doth appeare : And that Parnassis flowing fountaine fyne Into my works doth shyne lyke cristall cleare. O Muses, let them think that they do heare Your voyces all into my verse resound. And that your vertewis singuler and seir May wholly all in them be also found. Of all that may the perfyte Poems make, I pray you let my verses have no lake.

74 SONNETS

SONNET

12

IN short, you all forenamed gods I pray For to concur with one accord and will, That all my works may perfyte be alway : Which if ye doe, then sweare I for to fill My works immortall with your praises still : I shall your names eternall ever sing, I shall tread downe the grasse on Parnass hill By making with your names the world to ring : I shall your names from all oblivion bring. I lofty Virgill shall to life restoir, My subiects all shalbe of heavenly thing, How to delate the gods immortals gloir. Essay me once, and if ye find me swerve, Then thinke, I do not graces such deserve.

FINIS.

ANE SCHORT POEME OF TYME

AS I was pansing l in a morning aire, And could not sleip, nor nawayis take me

rest,

Furth for to walk, the morning was sa faire, Athort the feilds, it semed to me the best. The East was cleare, whereby belyve I gest That fyrie Titan dimming was in sight, Obscuring chast Diana by his light.

Who by his rysing in the Azure skyes, Did dewlie helse all thame on earth do dwell. The balmie dew through birning drouth he dryis, Which made the soile to savour sweit and smell, By dewe that on the night before downe fell, Which then was soukit by the Delphienns heit Up in the aire : it was so light and weit.

Whose hie ascending in his purpour Sphere

Provoked all from Morpheus to flee :

As beasts to feid, and birds to sing with beir,

Men to their labour, bissie as the Bee :

Yet idle men devysing did I see.

How for to dryve the tyme that did them irk,

By sindrie pastymes, whill that it grew mirk.

1 meditating.

76 ANE SCHORT POEME OF TYME

Then woundred I to see them seik a wyle, So willinglie the precious tyme to tyne : And how they did them selfis so farr begyle, To fashe of tyme, which of it selfe is fyne. Fra tyme be past, to call it bakwart syne Is bot in vaine : therefore men sould be warr, To sleuth the tyme that flees fra them so farr.

For what hath man bot tyme into this lyfe, Which gives him dayis his God aright to knaw : Wherefore then sould we be at sic a stryfe, So spedelie our selfis for to withdraw Evin from the tyme, which is on nowayes slaw To flie from us, suppose we fled it noght ? More wyse we were, if we the tyme had soght.

Bot sen that tyme is sic a precious thing,

I wald we sould bestow it into that

Which were most pleasour to our heavenly King.

Flee idilteth, which is the greatest lat.

Bot sen that death to all is destinat,

Let us imploy that time that God hath send us,

In doing weill, that good men may commend us.

Hczc quoque perfidat, quod perfidt omnia^ Tempus. FINIS.

HIS MAJESTIES OWNE SONNET1

GOD gives not kings the stile of Gods in vaine, For on his throne his scepter doe they swey : And as their subjects ought them to obey, So kings should feare and serve their God againe : If then ye would enjoy a happie raigne, Observe the statutes of your heavenly king, And from his Law, make all your Lawes to spring : Since his Lieutenant here ye should remaine, Reward the just, be stedfast, true, and plaine, Represse the proud, maintayning aye the right, Walke alwayes so, as ever in his sight, Who guardes the godly, plaguing the prophane : And so ye shall in Princely vertues shine, Resembling right your mightie King Divine.

1 Addressed to Prince Henry, and prefixed to the Basilicon Doron.

THE PSALMS OF KING DAVID TRANSLATED BY KING JAMES

These Psalms were first printed by Charles i. after his father's death. They contain numerous traces of the work of earlier versifiers.

PSALM XXIV

THE Earth belongs unto the Lord, and all that it contains :

the World that is inhabited, and all that there remains.

2 For the Foundation of the same, He on the

Seas did lay,

and also hath established it, upon the Floods to stay.

3 Who to the Hill that is the Lord's, with Glory

shall ascend ?

and who within His holy Place, shall stand- ing Him attend ?

4 Even he whose Hands are clean, whose Heart

is pure, who hath forborn to lift his Soul to Vanity, and hath not falsely sworn :

8o PSALM XXIV

5 That Man for certain from the Lord, the Bless-

ing shall obtain,

and from the God that saves his Soul, shall Righteousness attain.

6 This is of them that seek to Him, the Genera-

tion right;

ev'n of all them that truly seek, (O Jacob's God) Thy Sight.

7 Lift up your Heads, O ye strong Gates, be ye

uplifted all,

Doors everlasting, and come in the King of Glory shall.

8 Who is the King of Glory now? The Lord

who strong is found,

and mighty, ev'n the Lord, whose Might in battel is renown'd.

9 Lift up your Heads, O ye strong Gates, ev'n

lift ye them up all,

Doors everlasting, and come in the King of Glory shall.

10 Who is this King of Glory now? He that

commands as His

the Hosts of Heav'n and Earth, their Lord, the King of Glory is.

PSALM C

MAKE all ye Lands a joyful Noise, to Him that is the Lord of Might,

2 With Gladness ever serve the Lord, and

come with Singing in His Sight.

3 Know that the Lord is our great God, He us,

not we, our selves did make, we are His People, and the Sheep that He as His own Flock did take.

4 With Thanksgiving come in His Gates, and in

His Courts His Praise proclaim, be always thankful unto Him, and ever bless His holy Name.

5 For lo, the Lord is wholly good, His tender

Mercy lasts for ever,

and unto Generations all, His Truth doth constantly persevere.

PSALM CXLVIII

PRAISE ye the Lord, praise ye, Ev'n from the Heav'ns the Lord ; In Parts that highest be, To Him due Praise afford. i And praise Him most,

You Angels pure, His Praise procure, All you His Host.

; His Praise at length dilate, Thou Sun that shin'st so bright, Praise Him with Stars in State, Thou Moon that clear'st the Night.

Heav'ns, Heav'ns Him praise ;

Ye Floods that move,

The Heav'ns above,

His Glory raise.

; To magnify His Name, Let this them freely lead, Which doth Obedience claim, They by His word were made. > He fix'd them fast,

So still to be, And His Decree Shall ever last.

PSALM CXLVIII 83

7 From Earth to Heav'n's high Spheres Of God the Praises sound,

You Dragons forcing Fears, And Deeps of all this Round.

8 You Vapours still, Fire, Hail, and Snow, And Storms that blow To work God's Will.

9 You Mountains high and large, And Hills more low that ly,

You Trees which Fruits do charge, And Cedars mounting high.

10 You Troops of Store, You creeping Things, And you with Wings Aloft that soar.

1 1 You Kings that do command, And People great and small, You Princes of the Land, And you World's Judges all.

12 You Gallants strong, And Virgins fair, You Ag'd that are, And Infants young.

13 Let them, all join'd in one, The Lord's Name praise aright, For His great Name alone

Is excellent at height.

84 PSALM CXLVIII

14 His Glory love, Which none can even : It earth and Heaven Is far above.

15 And He doth strongly raise His People's Horn by Grace ; Of all His Saints the Praise ; Yea, ev'n of Israel's Race.

With Children stor'd A People near, And to Him dear, Praise ye the Lord.

LIST OF KING JAMES'S CHIEF WRITINGS

Essayes of a Prentise in the Divine Art of Poesie,

1584.

Paraphrase upon the Revelation of St. John, 1588. Meditation upon i Chronicles xv. 25-29, 1589. Poetical Exercises at Vacant Houres, 1591. Daemonologie, in the Form of a Dialogue, 1597. Basilikon Doron, 1599. The Trew Law of Free Monarchies, 1603. A Counterblaste to Tobacco, 1604. Oratio Regis in Comitiis Oxoniensibus, 1605. Apology for the Oath of Allegiance, 1607. Declaration against Cardinal Perron, 1615. Collected Works, edited by Bishop Montague, 1616. His Majesty's Reasons for his Proceedings against

Sir Walter Raleigh, 1618. The Peace-Maker, or Great Brittaine's Blessing,

1618.

A Meditation on the Lord's Prayer, 1619. A Meditation upon St. Matthew xxvii. 27-29. The Psalms of King David translated by King

James, 1630.

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press

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