minds to sanction his “Daemonologie,” first published in 1597.  To the honour of England, a single individual, Reginald Scot, with a genius far advanced beyond his age, denied the very existence of those witches and demons in the curious volume of his “Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584.  His books were burned! and the author was himself not quite out of danger; and Voetius, says Bayle, complains that when the work was translated into Dutch, it raised up a number of libertines who laughed at all the operations and the apparitions of devils.  Casaubon and Glanvil, who wrote so much later, treat Scot with profound contempt, assuring us his reasonings are childish, and his philosophy absurd!  Such was the reward of a man of genius combating with popular prejudices!  Even so late as 1687, these popular superstitions were confirmed by the narrations and the philosophy of Glanvil, Dr. More, &c.  The subject enters into the “Commentaries on the Laws of England.”  An edict of Louis XIV, and a statute by George II, made an end of the whole Diablerie.  Had James I. adopted the system of Reginald Scot, the king had probably been branded as an atheist king!]

[Footnote B:  Harris, with systematic ingenuity against James I., after abusing this tract as a wretched performance, though himself probably had written a meaner one—­quotes the curious information the king gives of the enormous abuse to which the practice of smoking was carried, expressing his astonishment at it.  Yet, that James may not escape bitter censure, he abuses the king for levying a heavy tax on it to prevent this ruinous consumption, and his silly policy in discouraging such a branch of our revenues, and an article so valuable to our plantations, &c.  As if James I. could possibly incur censure for the discoveries of two centuries after, of the nature of this plant!  James saw great families ruined by the epidemic madness, and sacrificed the revenues which his crown might derive from it, to assist its suppression.  This was patriotism in the monarch.]

It was a prompt honesty of intention to benefit his people, which seems to have been the urgent motive that induced this monarch to become an author, more than any literary ambition; for he writes on no prepared or permanent topic, and even published anonymously, and as he once wrote “post-haste,” what he composed or designed for practical and immediate use; and even in that admirable treatise on the duties of a sovereign, which he addressed to Prince Henry, a great portion is directed to the exigencies of the times, the parties, and the circumstances of his own court.  Of the works now more particularly noticed, their interest has ceased with the melancholy follies which at length have passed away; although the philosophical inquirer will not choose to drop this chapter in the history of mankind.  But one fact in favour of our royal author is testified by the honest Fuller and the cynical Osborne.  On the king’s arrival