upon it. And since the Subiect is but of Smoke, I thinke the fume of an
idle braine, may serue for a sufficient battery against so fumous 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 conceiue euen by this smallest trifle, of the
sinceritie of my meaning in great matters, never to spare any_
_paine that may tend to the_
_procuring of your weale_
_and prosperitie._

A COVNTER-BLASTE TO TOBACCO.

That 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 likewise of the reasons of the
first entry thereof into this Countrey. For certainely as such customes,
that haue 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 euer, and most iustly, holden
in great and reuerent estimation 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 hauing their originall from
base corruption and barbarity, doe in like sort, make their first entry
into a Countrey, by an inconsiderate and childish affectation of
Noueltie, as is the true case of the first inuention of _Tobacco_
taking, and of the first entry thereof among vs. For _Tobacco_ being a
common herbe, which (though vnder diuers names) growes almost
euerywhere, was first found out by some of the barbarous _Indians_, to
be a Preseruative, or Antidot against the Pockes, a filthy disease,
whereunto these barbarous people are (as all men know) very much
subiect, what through the vncleanly and adust constitution of their
bodies, and what through the intemperate heate of their Climate: so that
as from them was first brought into Christendome, that most detestable
disease, so from them likewise was brought this vse of _Tobacco_, as a
stinking and vnsauorie Antidot, for so corrupted and execrable a
Maladie, the stinking Suffumigation whereof they yet vse against that
disease, making so one canker or venime to eate out another.

And now good Countrey men let vs (I pray you) consider, what honour or
policie can mooue vs to imitate the barba