laugh,
because he can only sin. But he kept two clowns for his amusement, and
also appreciated Ben Jonson, to whom he gave the direction of the Court
Masques. He occasionally made some caustic remarks, which have come down
to us, such as, "Who denys a thing he even now spake, is like him that
looks in my face and picks my pocket." "A travelling preacher and a
travelling woman never come to any good at all."

Sir Henry Wooton told him how the Prince of Conde sued for the title of
Altesse from the Synod of Venice. The King replied, "The Prince had good
reason to sue for it, and that the Seigniory had done ill to deny it
him, considering that the world knew how well he deserved it; it being
his custom to raise himself upon every man's back, and to make himself
the higher by every man's tail he could get upon. And for that cause he
hoped to see him elevated by the just Justice of God to as high a
dignity as the gallows at last."

James the First's writings were mostly of a religious character, and
some of them were sufficiently ludicrous. But in his "Counterblaste to
Tobacco," his indignation is often mixed with humour. He observes that
smoking came from the Indians, and continues--

"And now, good countreymen let vs (I pray you) consider what honour or
policy can move vs to imitate the barbarous and beastly maneres of the
wilde, Godlesse and slavish Indians, especially in so vile and stinking
a custome? Shall wee that disdaine to imitate the manners of our
neighbour France.... Shall wee, I say without blushing abase ourselves
so farre as to imitate these beastly Indians, slaves to the Spaniards,
refuse to the world, and as yet aliens from the Holy Covenant of God?
Why doe wee not as well imitate them in walking naked as they doe? in
preferring glasses, feathers, and such toyes to gold and precious
stones, as they doe? Yea, why do wee not deny God, and adore the divel
as they doe?"

He proceeds to combat the theory, "That the braines of all men beeing
naturally cold and wet, all drie and hote things should be good for
them." "It is," he says, "as if a man, because the liver is hote, and as
it were an oven to the stomache, would therefore apply and weare close
upon his liver and stomache a cake of lead; he might within a short time
(I hope) bee susteined very cheape at an Ordinarie, besides the clearing
of his conscience from that dreadful sinne of gluttonie."

Towards the end he gives some medical testimony--

"Sure