that education was at a low ebb in Virginia, and
thanked his God that so far there were neither free schools nor printing
presses in the colony--the first instilling and the last disseminating
rebellious sentiments among the people. Yet under all these
disadvantages, Colonel Temple was well versed in the literature of the
last two reigns, and with some of the more popular works of the present.
Shakspeare was his constant companion, and the spring to which he often
resorted to draw supplies of wisdom. But Milton was held in especial
abhorrence--for the prose writings of the eloquent old republican
condemned unheard the sublime strains of his divine poem.

CHAPTER V.

"A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
One, whom the music of his own vain tongue,
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;
A man of compliments." _Love's Labor Lost._

"Well, Mr. Bernard," said the old Colonel as they entered the room,
"take a seat, and let's have a social chat. We old planters don't get a
chance often to hear the news from Jamestown, and I am afraid you will
find me an inquisitive companion. But first join me in a pipe. There is
no greater stimulant to conversation than the smoke of our Virginia
weed."

"You must excuse me," said Bernard, smiling, "I have not yet learned to
smoke, although, if I remain in Virginia, I suppose I will have to
contract a habit so general here."

"What, not smoke!" said the old man, in surprise. "Why tobacco is at
once the calmer of sorrows, the assuager of excitement; the companion of
solitude, the life of company; the quickener of fancy, the composer of
thought."

"I had expected," returned Bernard, laughing at his host's enthusiasm,
"that so rigid a loyalist as yourself, would be a convert to King
James's Counterblast. Have you never read that work of the royal
pedant?"

"Read it!" cried the Colonel, impetuously. "No! and what's more, with
all my loyalty and respect for his memory, I would sooner light my pipe
with a page of his Basilicon, than subscribe to the sentiments of his
Counterblast."

"Oh, he had his supporters too," replied Bernard, smiling. "You surely
cannot have forgotten the song of Cucullus in the Lover's Melancholy;"
and the young man repeated, with mock solemnity, the lines,

"They that will learn to drink a health in hell,
Must learn on earth to take tobacco well,
For in hell they drink no