(naming one of his neighbours) is found to be false, and he branded for a notorious cuckold, answered, ' Lord, husband, you are such another

man.""

Master Heywood then begins a long story of a dispute in the infernal regions between Lucifer and his courtiers, as to the express nature of the cuckold, which, none existing in his dominions, was decided to be examined into on earth by a "With this commission away goes messenger. the devil, shews himself upon the earth, and, taking the shape of a gallant, thrusts himself into the society of all kind of people. He comes to the countryman, asks, if he be a cuckold?who answers, he knows not what it means. The citizen denies himself to be the man. The soldier, with oaths, outfaceth the name. The lawyer will arrest any man upon an action of slander, that shall call him by that name. The courtier, indeed, confesseth himself to be a cuckold-maker, but to be a cuckold he can endure by no means." The remainder of the black gentleman's operations on terra firma are not suited to our purpose, and are therefore omitted. But enough has been furnished to form an opinion, that, though all agreed that cuckolds existed, they were invisible.

James I. was a decided enemy to the practice of chewing and smoking of tobacco. His "Counter-blast to Tobacco" declares his hostility in severe "With the report of a great discovery

terms.

for

for a conquest, some two or three savage men were brought in together, with this savage custom. But the pity is, the poor wild barbarous men died, but that vile barbarous custom is yet in fresh vigour,"

alive: yea,

"Such is the miraculous omnipotency of our strong-tasted tobacco, as it cures all sorts of diseases (which never any drug could do before) in all persons, and at all times. It cures all manner of distillations, either in the head or stomach (if you believe their axioms); although, in very deed, it do both corrupt the brain, and, by causing over-quick digestion, fill the stomach full of crudities. It cures the gout in the feet, and, which is miraculous, in that very instant when the smoke thereof, as light, flies up into the head, the virtue thereof, as heavy, runs down to the little toe. It helps all sorts of agues. It makes a man sober that was drunk. It refreshes a weary man; and yet makes a man hungry. Being taken when they go to bed, it makes one sleep soundly; and yet, being taken when a man is sleepy and drowsy, it will, as they say, awake his brain, and quicken his understanding. Here, in England, it is refined, and will not deign to cure here any other than cleanly and gentlemanly diseases. O, omnipotent power of tobacco! And if it could by the smoke thereof chase out devils, as the smoke of Tobias fish did (which I am sure could smell no stronglier), it would serve for a

precious

precious relick, both for the superstitious priests and the insolent puritans, to cast out devils withall."

This paragraph very fully explains the general admiration of the supposed qualities of tobacco, throughout all classes of the monarch's subjects. I have mentioned a tradition, which obtained in the parish of St. Matthew, Friday Street, in my "History of London," of sir Walter Raleigh, alluded to by the king as the the king as the person who introduced it, sitting at his door, and smoking with sir Hugh Middleton, in the preceding reign; when the custom was, probably, promoted through the public manner in which it was exhibited, and the aromatic flavour inhaled by the passengers, exclusive of the singularity of the circumstance, and the eminence of the parties. Indeed, the two last motives were capable alone of establishing a practice ten times more pernicious than the above sentences represent it to be.

In ascribing more than one sin to the use of tobacco, James did not forget "the greatest sin of all; that you," addressing himself to his subjects, "the people of all sorts of this kingdom, who are created and ordained by God to bestow both your persons and goods for the maintenance both of the honour and safety of your king and commonwealth, should disable yourselves in both! In your persons, having by this continual, vile custom, brought yourselves to this shameful imbeci,

lity, that you are not able to ride or walk the journey of a Jew's sabbath, but you must have a reeky coal brought you from the next poor house to kindle your tobacco with!"

The rarity of the plant, though the king stigmatizes it as a weed that will grow any where, must have been the cause of the enormous price it bore when he wrote; which is ascertained by the succeeding observation. "Now how you are by this custom disabled in your goods, let the gen try of this land bear witness; some of them bestowing three, some four hundred pounds a year upon this precious stink." Well might the censor denounce tobacco, procured at this rate. The income of the humble citizen must, indeed, have been incompetent to obtain it, and at the same time pay the king's demands for the exigencies of government. "And for the vanities committed in 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

of soot, as hath been found in some great tobaccotakers 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, have been at last forced to duck themselves in that rain-water, and so become fools as well as the rest of the people, and, partly, be as one that was content to eat garlick (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 strait they must be infumed 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 with 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."

The