A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 22 pages of information about A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco.

A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 22 pages of information about A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco.
example of his owne Person, and by the due execution of good Lawes, to reform and abolish, piece and piece, these old and euill grounded abuses.  For this will not bee Opus vnius diei, but as euery one of these diseases, must from the King receiue the owne cure proper for it, so are there some sorts of abuses in Common-wealths, that though they be of so base and contemptible a condition, as they are too low for the Law to looke on, and too meane for a King to interpone his authoritie, or bend his eye vpon:  yet are they corruptions, as well as the greatest of them.  So is an Ant an Animal, as well as an Elephant:  so is a VVrenne Auis, as well as a Swanne, and so is a small dint of the Toothake, a disease as well as the fearefull Plague is.  But for these base sorts of corruption in Common-wealthes, not onely the King, or any inferior Magistrate, but Quilibet e populo may serve to be a Phisician, by discouering and impugning the error, and by perswading reformation thereof.

And surely in my opinion, there cannot be a more base, and yet hurtfull corruption in a Countrey, then is the vile vse (or other abuse) of taking Tobacco in this Kingdome, which hath moued me, shortly to discouer the abuses thereof in this following little Pamphlet.

If any thinke it a light Argument, so it is but a toy that is bestowed 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

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A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.