HISTORICAL. V 



King James I., " the Most High and Mightie 

 Prince " — the British Solomon, as his courtiers 

 called him — Maistre Jacques, as he was dubbed 

 by Henry IV. — was amongst the first to denounce 

 the use of tobacco. A characteristic quotation 

 from his ' Count erblaste, or Misocapnus,^ has been 

 given on the back of the title-page. This royal 

 philippic, lusus regius, has been and is the favourite 

 theme for reproduction by those amongst' the 

 moderns who feel a sort of vocation to denounce 

 the " weed;" but if they do not seek merely to 

 advertise their professional avocations, they should 

 remember that the moral opinions of James I. 

 can have no weight with any man who is ac- 

 quainted with the history of that royal pheno- 

 menon, who was himself "a slave to vices which 

 could not fail to make him an object of disgust " 

 equal to that which he felt at the *' stinking fume " 

 of tobacco ;* and that better evidence than mere 

 assertion must be produced in a court where the 

 majority of mankind may or will be defendants. 



We may gather, however, from the king's tes- 



* Raumer, ii. p. 200 etseq., giviug contemporary vouchers ; 

 also Winwood's ' Memorials/ ii. 



