civ  INTRODUCTORY  MEMOIR

inhabited  by  such  as  both  fight  with  one  an
other  about  shadows  [o-Kia/xa^ouz/rcoi/],  and  raise
sedition  about  governing,  as  if  it  were  some
mighty  good."  *

So  to  our  philosophic  Drummond  all  this
bitter  contention  of  Kirk  against  Church,  of
Presbyter  against  Prelate,  was  simply  Skia-
machia,  a  fighting  about*  shadows.  His  trea
tise  is,  above  all  things,  a  protest  against  the
tyranny  of  the  clergy.  It  is  aimed,  of  course,
Especially  at  the  Presbyterian  ministers  and
the  Commissioners  for  the  Affairs  of  the  Kirk,
whom  he  compares  with  the  Spanish  inquisjtors
"  Have  we  rejected  the  High  Commission,  to
set  over  us  men  more  rigid,  supercilious,  and
severe  than  the  Spanish  inquisitors  themselves?"
And  he  warns  them,  "  Where  by  blood  ye  shall
make  three  proselytes,  ye  shall  make  a  hundred
hypocrites."  But  here,  as  in  Irene,  Drummond
does  not  confine  his  censures  to  the  clergy  of
his  own  time  and  country.  The  following
extract  must  suffice.
"  Presumptuous  churchmen  in  most  parts  of
the  kingdoms  of  Europe  have  proven  worse
than  the  foxes  of  Samson.t  They  but  burnt

*  Thomas  Taylor's  translation  :  Works  of  Plato,  vol.
i.  p.  365.
t  In  the  declaration  against  the  cross-petition  this
comparison  is  used  of  the  petitioners  :  "It  will  be  ob-


INTRODUCTORY  MEMOIR  cv

the  corns  when  the  fields  were  white  for  the
harvest ;  but  these  have  burnt  whole  towns,
male  and  female,  children  and  old  men,  guilty
or  not  guilty,  holy  or  profane,  turning  all  under
the  law  of  their  spoil  and  licentiousness  ;  dyed
the  white  fields  in  blood  ;  turned  them  into  a
Golgotha,  as  in  our  own  country  that  one  battle
of  Pinkie  can  testify,  where  a  churchman  was
both  the  loss  of  the  field  and  commonwealth.
