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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 office, for the which ye are ordained.

(From Basilikon Doron.)

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 one to another, making the filthy smoke and stink thereof, to exhale athwart the dishes, and infect the air, when very often men that abhor it are at their repast? Surely smoke becomes a kitchen far better than a dining chamber, and yet it makes a kitchen also oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soiling and infecting 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 is 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, their 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

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.

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

suaded that the government Episcopal is the only right and apostolic form. Parity among ministers is the breeder of confusion, as experience might have taught us; and for these ruling elders, as they are a mere human device, so will they prove, if they find way, the ruin both of Church and State." "No bishop, no king," was for him the final expression of the truth upon questions of government; and it is evident that the state of mind which, accepting the axiom, could carry it without flinching to one of its logical conclusions, a Republic, was to him quite incomprehensible. "James Melville," he says, "lost the king's favour and so made himself unprofitable to the Church." That subjects may lawfully rise and take the sword out of the king's hand is "a most execrable doctrine." King James was "the Solomon of this age." Among his ancestors "during 1400 years" on the Scottish throne-"If a careless or dissolute king (which in so long a succession of princes is not to be wondered) happened to reign, the same was abundantly repaired by one or other of the kings that followed."

Enough has been said to illustrate the temper in which Spottiswoode wrote. But if he was a courtier, he had all the graces, and far more than the virtues, of the Court. It is natural to compare his work with that of Knox. Readers will declare for or against the sentiments of either according to their prepossessions. In energy, in narrative power, and in the general impression of genius produced, the earlier writer must be pronounced by far the superior. Spottiswoode's merits are of a different order. His style is smooth, but seldom strikes any high note. There is no display of enthusiasm; the reader is rarely warmed into strong approval or censure; the tone is that of gentlemanly compromise or bland remonstrance. The really notable point about the book is the breadth of its charity. In this Christian virtue it must be acknowledged that the earlier Scottish Reformers were sadly deficient. Knox was most intolerant of opposition. Spottiswoode, in the whole of his History, has not a bitter word for foe or friend, unless it be one about Andrew Melville, who had indeed been a sore thorn in His Grace's flesh.

JAMES MILLer Dodds.

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