from him in opinion as to the causes which produce a difference in the muscular strength and energies of individuals, and of races of

men.

The best reason that could be given for wearing the longest and largest beard of any Englishman, was that of a worthy clergyman in Elizabeth's reign, viz:-"that no act of his life might be unworthy of the gravity of his appearance.

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The grandfather of Mrs. Thomas, the Corinna of Cromwell, the literary friend of Pope, by her account, was very nice in the mode of that age, his valet being some hours every morning in starching his beard, and curling his whiskers-during which time he was always read to." Taylor, the water poet, humorously describes the great variety of beards in his time. The beard, says Granger, dwindled gradually under the two Charles' till it was reduced to whiskers, and became extinct in the reign of James II., as if its fatality had been connected with that of the house of Stuart.

TOBACCO.

It is somewhat remarkable that the use of tobacco should have become so general throughout every portion of the civilized world, and at so early a period after the plant became known in Europe, especially when we recollect that its use was at first denounced by Kings, Emperors and Councils, and forbidden by the bulls of two successive Popes.

The first account we have of the tobacco is that of Romanus Pane, a Spanish monk, whom Columbus, in his second departure from America, had left in that country, and who became acquainted with the plant in St. Domingo. This account was published in 1496. It does not appear, however, that the use of tobacco was commenced in Europe until after the middle of the 16th Century, when Jean Nicot, envoy from France at the Court of Portugal transmitted the seeds of the tobacco plant to Queen Catherine de Medicis; from which circumstance it has obtained its botanical name of Nicotiana. In 1604, James the first of England endeavoured by means of heavy imposts, to abolish the use of tobacco in his dominions; very properly considering it to be "a most noxious and filthy weed." As early as 1610, the smoking of tobacco was known at Constantinople. To render the custom ridiculous, a Turk, who had been found smoking, was conducted about the streets with a pipe passed through his nose. For a long time after this the Turks purchased tobacco, and of the worst quality from the English. It was long before they learned to cultivate the plant for themselves. In 1619, King James the first of England wrote his celebrated "miscoapno" against the use of tobacco, and ordered that no planter in Virginia should cultivate more than one hundred pounds per annum. Five years subsequently, Pope Urban VIII. published a bull of excommunication against all who should take snuff in church, because then already some Spanish ecclesiastics used it even during the celebration of mass. In 1634 smok

ing was forbidden in Russia under the penalty of having the nose cut off. In 1653 some of the inhabitants of the Canton of Apenzell in ✔ Switzerland began to indulge in the habit of smoking. At first the children ran after them in the streets. The Council likewise cited. the smokers before them, and punished them-they also commanded the innkeepers to inform against all such as should smoke in their houses. Towards the middle of the seventeenth Century, the police regulation of the Canton of Berne was made, which was divided according to the ten commandments. The prohibition to smoke tobacco was introduced immediately after the seventh commandment. The prohibition was renewed fourteen years subsequently, and a tribunal particularly instituted to put it in execution, the "Chambre du tabac," which was continued until about the middle of the eighteenth Century. In 1670 and the two following years, smoking of tobacco was punished in the Canton of Glarus by a pecuniary fine for every offence of one crown Swiss currency. In 1690, Pope Innocent XII. excommunicated all who should be guilty of using snuff or tobacco in the church of St. Peter at Rome. In 1724, however, the bull of excommunication was revoked by Benedict XIV., who had himself acquired the habit of taking snuff. In 1719, the senate of Strasburgh prohibited entirely the culture of tobacco, from an apprehension that it would prove injurious by diminishing the growing of corn. Notwithstanding all this formidable array of church and state against the use of tobacco-so essential an article of luxury was it deemed towards the latter part of the eighteenth century, that the revenue derived from the article of tobacco alone amounted in Portugal, Spain, Denmark and France, to upwards of ten millions of Rix dollars annually.

It is not to be supposed, however, that the use of tobacco had not its defenders; its eulogy was early pronounced by men of very considerable eminence. To the Hollander it was recommended as a corrective of the bad effects upon the body of a damp and foggy atmosphere-to the melancholy as an exciter of the nerves-to the sanguine as a preventive of apoplexy-to the asthmatic as a softner of phlegm-to the inhabitants of cold climates as a warmer of the blood, and to the inhabitant of hot climates as a sure preventive against the plague and all contagious diseases. It was declared to be an excellent help to study by clearing the brain, and like wine to enliven the imagination of the poet. In fact, to believe all that has been said of tobacco, its discovery was to be viewed as one of the greatest blessings bestowed on man.

Erskine's famous lines in praise of tobacco smoking are well known to the reader, as well as Browne's "pipe oftobacco." Most of its supposed virtues are thus summed up by Howell in his letters;* "If moderately, and seasonably taken (as I find you always do) it is good for many things; it helps digestion taken a while after meat; it makes one void rheum, expels wind, and keeps the body open: a

* Correspondence of James Howell, Esq. 1646.

Excuses for Drunkenness.

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leaf or two being steeped over night in a little white wine, is a vo▾ mit that never fails in its operation: it is a good companion to one that converseth with dead men, for if one hath been poring long upon a book, or is toiled with the pen, and stupified with study, it quickeneth him, and dispels those clouds that usually overset the brain. The smoke of it is one of the wholesomest scents that is, against all contagious airs, for it overmasters all other smells. Now to decend from the substance of the smoke to the ashes, it is well known that the medical virtues thereof are very many; but they are so common that I will spare the insertion of them here." Such was the esteem in which the virtues of tobacco were once held by men of sense-what then must have been the estimate of them by the vulgar. Happy would it be for our own countrymen, who from the smallest even to the largest-from the humblest even to the greatest, are prone to indulge in the chewing or smoking or snuffing of tobacco did the plant possess a tythe of the virtues that have been ascribed to it-disease or dullness they would never have known, and we are persuaded no surly critic would ever have dared to pronounce a good poet, a chaste orator, or a correct historian an uncommon thing in America.

EXCUSES FOR DRUNKENNESS.

We have long had upon our table an essay bearing the above title, and published towards the close of the last Century. It is full of humor and most biting satire. It was our intention to present to our readers some extracts from it before now; but in consequence of other subjects pressing in upon us of more immediate interest it has been laid aside. Our attention has been recalled to it, however, in consequence of finding it with some slight alterations transferred to a late English publication where it appears as an original article.

Against indulgence in wine, says the writer, there are, perhaps, no arguments so strong as the arguments in its favour contained in the songs of the Bacchanalians. We are dissuaded from it by the moralist, who represents it as the fascination of a Siren, which wins us over to vice by subduing our reason, and we are invited to it by the song of the Bacchanalian, as to something that will soothe our cares, inspire us with joys vehement if not permanent; and banish from our minds the evils and troubles of life. The former seems to think, that the vice of drunkenness has so many allurements, as to require his cautions against our being seduced into it; and the latter that it has so few, as to stand in need of his strongest recommendations in its favour.

"When filled with wine the poor man forgets his poverty," says Hafiz, or some other commender of wine,—and a more modern poet praises it as "unloosing the stammering tongue." In argument these words will go no farther than to prove, that he who is poor, may, by drinking, become in imagination rich, and that he who stammers, may, by the same expedient, find the temporary use

14

Excuses for Drunkenness.

of his tongue. He that is not a beggar then will recollect, that he stands in no need of such a receipt, and he who does not stammer will think that remedy unnecessary which was intended to cure a disease with which he is not afflicted. I can inform them too, upon pretty good authority, that the remedy in both cases is rather a doubtful one-that it has in fact, made many a rich man poor, and deprived many an orator of his ready tongue.

Wine is further recommended to us as the inspirer of courage"it thrusts the unarmed man to battle." That it has this effect is, I believe, very true, and so much the worse for the unarmed man. The testimony of a black eye, or a bloody nose, the frequent offspring of wine drinking, are striking proofs, that to go unarmed to battle is no great mark of wisdom nor a desirable test of courage. Wine, however, it is said inspires confidence, and wit, and eloquence; that is, it changes modesty to impudence, ingrafts the art of joking upon dullness, and makes a long winded story teller of a fool. While these qualifications are worth obtaining, I would have sobriety considered as a vulgarity, if not stigmatised as something worse; but when that ceases to be the case, I hope the liberal spirit of tolerating principles, which is so much the fashion of the age, will allow a moderate man, without infamy, to say, "I would rather not get drunk to-day." Indeed, I have reason to believe this might be brought to pass, having seen one instance of a gentleman, with politeness, excused from taking wine, upon his producing the testimony of two experienced physicians, that he was laboring under a violent fever; and another, upon a certificate, properly authenticated, from the church wardens of the parish being presented, to show that he had lately lost his mother.

Now to turn the tables upon the wine praising poets, I could adduce without much difficulty the written experience of certain observing individuals, who have passed among their neighbours as men of sound judgments, to prove that wine, in the language of one of them, "often turns the good natured man into an idiot, and the choleric man into an assassin;" that "it gives bitterness to resentment, makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity."

But there is another set of very weighty arguments or excuses call them which you will, for indulgence in wine. Certain great, and wise and learned men, who have been praised and courted and admired have made free use of it. It is true that those who are not thoroughly satisfied with becoming drunkards, unless they can find precedents for their folly, may drink on under the sanction and authority of Alcous, Aristophanes and Ennius. Dullness may still plead a right to this indulgence, because the unsteady principles of heathen morality did not stigmatize it in Cato. I could produce examples enough, under which all musicians, poets, satirists, wits and orators may shelter themselves; and I will undertake to furnish the same kind of license for the barbers, dentists, carpenters, and glaziers, or any other order of men who will depute an embassy to call on me:-I shall only request in return, that they will allow me

a trifling consideration, in their respective branches. I shall stipulate for a wig, a triple bob major, because Demosthenes shaved his head; and to have my teeth drawn because that orator had an impediment in his speech; I must have a wooden leg, most certainly, because Agesilaus was lame; and a pair of glass eyes because Homer was blind. I shall by these means be supplied with as rational a set of apologies for my deformities, as they will for their intemperance; and in process of time, I have no doubt, but it will be considered as highly ornamental to be bald pated, stuttering, limping and blear eyed, as it will be to be addicted to the use of wine.

PHYSIOGNOMY.

There is hardly any subject of such frequent speculation and on which we are so prone to form an opinion, as the expression of countenance of people whom we see for the first time. Every body, almost in despite of himself, is a physiognomist; that, is he infers from the features of the face the intellect and disposition, and not unfrequently even the character of its owner. Like most judgments formed hastily and with insufficient data, there are many errors in the every day physiognomical conclusions. Not that the subject properly considered, is necessarily or must commonly be a source of error: but it is studied in a wrong light, by our attaching importance to what is really extrinsic, and insisting on there being more revealed to us than the testimony of the case warrants; and finally by our overlooking parts of evidence which bear directly on it.

Physiognomy, as we have elsewhere said, "is essentially the study of all those parts, which by their configuration and motion, are indicative of physical and moral powers and properties; and which give premonition of the varying states of feeling, either in bodily pain or mental anxiety." There are, in fact, two divisions of physiognomy: the one consisting in a study of the configuration and prominences of the superficies of the several parts of the body, especially of its hard or bony part; the other in that of the moions of the soft parts, especially of the muscles. The first constitutes, mainly, national physiognomy, or that of the different races of mankind; characterised as they are by the different size and form of the scull, and varying prominence of the bones of the cheek, nose and chin; straitness or curve of the bones of the leg; length and fulness of those of the foot especially the heel. The second, or individual physiognomy, depends on the movements more or less rapid, and in quick succession or alternation of the muscles or fleshy parts of the face and limbs. Attitudes and gesture are in fact as much within the domain of physiognomy as the play of the features of the face, and are to the full as significant of the temper and disposition of the individual as are these latter.

It is the second of these divisions alone, that is to engage our attention when we study physiognomy in the common acceptation