And I

as it shall retain the lustre of a poem, although in prose. would also advise you to write in your own language; for there is nothing left to be said in Greek or Latin already, and ynew of poor scholars would match you in these languages; and besides that, it best becometh a King to purify and make famous his own tongue, wherein he may go before all his subjects, as it setteth him well to do in all honest and lawful things.

And amongst all unnecessary things that are lawful and expedient, I think exercises of the body most commendable to be used by a young Prince, in such honest games or pastimes as may further ability and maintain health. For albeit I grant it to be most requisite for a King to exercise his engine, which surely with idleness will rust and become blunt; yet certainly bodily exercises and games are very commendable, as well for banishing of idleness (the mother of all vice) as for making his body able and durable for travel, which is very necessary for a King. But from this count I debar all rough and violent exercises, as the foot-ball; meeter for laming than making able the users thereof: as likewise such tumbling tricks as only serve for comedians and balladines, to win their bread with. But the exercises that I would have you to use (although buf moderately, not making a craft of them) are running, leaping, wrestling, fencing, dancing, and playing at the catch or tennis, archery, palle maillé, and such like other fair and pleasant field-games. And the honourablest and most commendable games that ye can use, are on horseback: for it becometh a Prince best of any man, to be a fair and good horseman. Use therefore to ride and danton great and courageous horses; that I may say of you as Philip said of great Alexander his son, Μακεδονία οὔ σε χωρεῖ. And specially use such games on horseback, as may teach you to handle your arms thereon; such as the tilt, the ring, and low riding for handling of your sword.

I cannot omit here the hunting, namely with running hounds, which is the most honourable and noblest sort thereof; for it is a thievish form of hunting to shoot with guns and bows; and greyhound hunting is not so martial a game. But because I would not be thought a partial praiser of this sport, I remit you to Xenophon, an old and famous writer, who had no mind of flattering you or me in this purpose, and who also setteth down a fair pattern for the education of a young king, under the supposed name of Cyrus.

As for hawking I condemn it not, but I must praise it more sparingly, because it neither resembleth the wars so near as hunting doth, in making a man hardy, and skilfully ridden in all grounds, and is more uncertain and subject to mischances; and (which is worst of all) is therethrough an extreme stirrer up of passions. But in using either of these games, observe that moderation, that ye slip not therewith the hours appointed for your affairs, which ye ought ever precisely to keep; remembering that these games are but ordained for you, in enabling you for the affice for the which ye are ordained.

(From Basilikon Doron.)

i

TOBACCO AND GOOD MANNERS

AND for the vanities committed by this filthy custom, is it not both great vanity and uncleanness, that at the table, a place of respect, of cleanliness, of modesty, men should not be ashamed, to sit tossing of tobacco pipes and puffing of the smoke of tobacco ne to another, making the filthy smoke and stink thereof, to xhale athwart the dishes, and infect the air, when very often men that abhor it are at their repast? Surely smoke becomes a tchen far better than a dining chamber, and yet it makes a tchen also oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soiling and fecting them with an unctuous and oily kind of soot, as hath been found in some great tobacco takers, that after their death were opened. And not only meal time, but no other time nor action exempted from the public use of this uncivil trick: so as if the wives of Dieppe list to contest with this nation for good manners, eir worst manners would in all reason be found at least not so dishonest (as ours are) in this point. The public use whereof, at all times, and in all places, hath now so far prevailed, as divers men very sound both in judgment and complexion hath been at last forced to take it also without desire, partly because they were ashamed to seem singular (like the two philosophers that were forced to duck themselves in that rain water and so become fools as well as the rest of the people), and partly to be as one that was content to eat garlic (which he did not love) that he might not be troubled with the smell of it in the breath of his fellows. And is it not a great vanity, that a man cannot heartily

welcome his friend now, but straight they must be 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 fellows (though by his own election he would rather feel the savour of a sink) is accounted peevish and no good company, even as they do with tippling in the cold eastern countries. Yea the mistress cannot in a more mannerly kind entertain her servant, than by giving him out of her fair hand a pipe of tobacco. But herein is not only a great vanity, but a great contempt of God's good gifts, that the sweetness of man's breath, being a good gift of God, should be wilfully corrupted by this stinking smoke, wherein I must confess, it hath too strong a virtue; 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 again, shall be filthily corrupted with an incurable stink, which vile quality is as directly contrary to that wrong opinion which is holden of the wholesomeness thereof, as the venom of putrefaction is contrary to the virtue preservative.

Moreover, which is a great iniquity, and against all humanity, the husband shall not be ashamed to reduce thereby his delicate, wholesome, and clean complexioned wife to that extremity, that either she must also corrupt her sweet breath therewith, or else resolve to live in a perpetual stinking torment.

Have you not reason then to be ashamed, and to forbear this filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so foolishly received, and so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof? In your abuse thereof sinning against God, harming yourselves both in person and goods, and raking also thereby the marks and notes of vanity upon you; by the custom thereof making yourselves to be wondered at by all foreign civil nations, and by all strangers that come upon you to be scorned and contemned: a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

(From A Counterblast to Tobacco.)

VOL. II

F

JOHN SPOTTISWOODE

[Spottiswoode was born of a good Scottish stock in 1565, seven years before Knox's death. He was educated at Glasgow University, and succeeded his father as minister of Calder in West Lothian. In 1601-2, as chaplain to the Duke of Lennox, he visited the French and English Courts. On the accession of James VI. to the throne of England he accompanied the king to his new capital, and was sent back to Scotland as Archbishop of Glasgow. He became Archbishop of St. Andrews in 1615, and Lord High Chancellor of Scotland in 1635. He was a favourite with both James VI. and Charles I., and wrote his History of the Church of Scotland (first published in 1665) at the instigation of the former monarch. He died in 1639, and is buried in Westminster Abbey.]

"IN Scotland," says Lord Clarendon, speaking of the time of James VI. and I., "though there were bishops in name, the whole jurisdiction and they themselves were subject to an Assembly which was purely presbyterian: no form of religion in practice, no liturgy, nor the least appearance of any beauty of holiness." Spottiswoode was one of the prelates who found themselves in this unfortunate position, against which his life and his works were one constant protest. He seems to have been rather a counter than a player in the game between priest and presbyter which in Scotland preluded the Great Rebellion, and it was his fate, like Clarendon's, to record the contest from the standpoint of the losing side. But his History of the Church of Scotland is all the more valuable on that account. A successful party never wants defenders, and posterity is too ready to condemn a failure. Spottiswoode's History enables us to appreciate the royal policy as it presented itself to a man, not indeed of high genius, but gifted with sufficient insight to make his record both interesting and instructive.

A

Spottiswoode was bred in the atmosphere of authority. sentence from his will sums up the tenor of his writings :— "Touching the government of the Church, I am verily per