by which the custom was known among the vulgar. To drink tobacco was also applied to the use of the weed, from a prevalent custom of partially swallowing the smoke and then blowing it out through the nostrils; an amusement which still seems to have some attractions for amateurs. JOSEPH HALL, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, "characterized by the learned," says CAMDEN," as the English Seneca, dexterous at Controversy, not unhappy at Comments, very good at Characters, better in Sermons, best of all in Meditations and Contemplations," found, in this nose-smoking custom, a simile to illustrate the decline of hospitality, in his Satires.*

"Look to the tow'red chimnies which should be
The wind-pipes of good hospitality,
Through which it breatheth to the open aire
Betokening life and liberal welfare ;

Lo! there th' unthankful swallow takes her rest,
And fills the tunnell with her circled nest;

Nor half that smoke from all his chimnies goes

Which one tobacco-pipe drives through his nose."

Of the "gentlenen adventurers who served against the Spaniards," Sir WALTER RALIEGH was a famous type, and particularly so in regard to leading the fashion in smoking. A passage in one of HowEL's letters, dated January 1st, 1647, which informs us that RALEIGH won a wager of good Queen BESS on the weight of smoke in a pound of tobacco, is very cleverly used by the talented author of "SHAKESPEARE and his friends."

"May it please your majesty," said Sir WALTER RALEIGH, coming into the room with his pipe in his hand, "I have smoked out the quantity of tobacco agreed upon."

"Haste thee and weigh the smoke, then," replied the queen, with a chuckle of delight, which was echoed by those around her.

"I will tell your Majesty the weight of the smoke in a few seconds," responded RALEIGH, taking in his hand a small pair of ivory scales which stood on an adjoining table.

"Thou wilt never get so much smoke into such tiny balances, Sir WALTER RALEIGH," observed her Majesty with the same tone, "so thou mayest as well acknowledge that the wager is ours."

"Your Majesty will be pleased to observe that the weight in this scale is the exact weight of the ashes left in the pipe," replied Sir WALTER, showing the scales, in one of which he had put the ashes at even balance. "Now, if your Majesty will graciously remember the weight of the unburnt tobacco upon which the experiment was made, by subtracting from it the weight of the ashes, which I have here ascertained, the sum produced will be the exact weight of the smoke."

Sir WALTER RALEIGH, with the scales still in his hand, wore on his noble features, at this moment, an expression of very evident satisfaction, as he turned round and looked down upon his audience-some of whom seemed incredulous, others wondering, the rest puzzled what to think; but all were

* Virgidemiarum, 1797-9. HALL alludes to his being the first professed writer of satires in England.

"I first adventure; follow me who list,

And be the second English Satirist."

His satires have elicited the most enthusiastic encomiums of POPE WARton HALLAM, CAMPBELL, HENRY NEELE, and others.

waiting in silence the effect of his announcement upon their sovereign, whose abler understandings perceived at once the accuracy of the result, though it was so different from what they had expected, and felt as if she could not enough admire the simplicity of the method which had so easily proved what she thought had been impossible.

"The gold is thine, Sir WALTER RALEIGH," said she, rising from her chair with a dignity none knew better how to put on, as she placed a wellfilled purse in his hand, "and fairly is it won. There have been many laborers in the fire whose vast undertaking have ended in smoke; but thou art the first whose smoke was ever turned into gold."

From the same letter in which HowEL alludes to this clever conceit of RALEIGH, we learn that the Spaniards and Irish were largely given to the use of tobacco in its pulverized form of "smutchin," (snuff.) which" mightily refreshes the brain." He believed there was as much used "this way in Ireland as there is in pipes in England." "One shall commonly see," he says, "the servant-maid upon the washing-block, and the swain upon the ploughshare, when over-tired with their labor, take out their boxes of smutchin and draw it into their nostrils with a quill, and it will beget new spirits in them, with fresh vigor to fall to their work again." There is doubtless some connection between the word "smutchin" as applied to snuff, and the Irish word smachteen as applied (at a later date) to tobacco in its unpulverized state. The epithet smachteen cron (Brown Little Mallet) was applied to a stout description of tobacco, smuggled into Ireland about the middle of the last century, and in which an extensive traffic was carried on in Munster. The setting of a lively air called "The Smachteen Cron," is given in O'DALY's Munster Poets and Poetry; and also some Irish words to it, as probably the earliest specimen of the many songs current among the peasantry to the same air and purport. The following is a transla

tion:

"Arise, get up my girl!
Boil potatoes and meat!
Here comes up the garden

The lad with the Smachteen Cron.

Oro, ro, my Smachteen!

Love of my soul, my Smachteen!
Oro, ro, my my Smachteen !

O my Smachteen Cron !"*

Notwithstanding, that the use of tobacco was fashionable with the wits and gallants, it was made the subject of satire by even those who were not averse to a quiet pipe and a pottle of sack. That there were two parties to the tobacco question, even when RALEIGH and the court circle gave to smoking that character which, in historical chronicles, takes the place of popularity, is very evident from one especial fact. That is, that SHAKSPERE does not mention tobacco, or smoking, in any way tending either to advocate or abuse the weed. SHAKSPERE was a famous man of business, a discreet, well-poised brain, which would devote itself to all things-give grace to the lowest, or honor to the highest walk. In our day he could successfully pursue any calling-from the monotonous routine of a city railroad conductor, to the far reaching emergencies of a cabinet minister. Discre

* O'DALY'S Poets and Poetry of Munster; with poetical translations by the late JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN; and the original music, &c., Dublin: 1850. p. 229.

tion he regarded as a solid basis for success. In business matters he clearly deemed a decent respect for the opinion of mankind, not the least important attraction to amuse those by whom he was to live. This feeling would make him not less a courtier to the sovereign people than to the people's Sovereign. Though friendly with RALEIGH, he had sufficient discretion to deny himself the exaltation of his friends' tobacco weakness, lest he might offend a rival party; and per contra, declined to abuse tobacco lest he might exalt the opponents of the new custom, at the expense of his friend. So with his usual business tact, he concluded to say nothing about it. "Pipes " and "smoke" are mentioned by SHAKSPERE, but the former are not those through which the latter is drawn; nor the latter that which circled from human mouths or snorted from human nostrils, though both may have suggested the metaphor of Romeo.

"Love is a smoke, made with the fume of sighs;

Being puff'd, a fire sparkling in lover's eyes."

The greatest of SHAKSPERE'S poetical and dramatic contemporaries, SPENSER and BEN JONSON, were less discreet, and entered in various degrees into the feelings of the era on the matter. The former, whose turmoils with, show him to have been equally excitable as, the Irish, was a devoted friend of RALEIGH, by whom he was visited at his Irish home of Kilcolman, and through whom he received the laureateship from ELIZABETH. No wonder he could see a virtue in the American plant, and call it "divine Tobacco.” JONSON, notorious for his brawls, his passions, and emphatic nature, was not likely to be neutral. He has given us the temper of the times. After his fashion, Captain Bobadil thus enlarges on the great qualities of Tobacco : "Sir, believe me upon my relation,-for what I tell you the world shall not reprove. I have been in the Indies where this herb grows, where neither myself, nor a dozen gentlemen more of my knowledge, have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one-andtwenty weeks, but the fume of this simple herb only. Therefore, it cannot be but 'tis most divine. Further, take it in the true kind, so, it makes an antidote, that had you taken the most deadly poisonous plant in all Italy, it should expel it and clarify you with as much ease as I speak. And for your green wound,—your balsamum, and your St. John's-wort, are all mere gulleries and trash to it, especially your Trinidado. Your Nicotian is good, too. I could say what I know of it for the expulsion of rheums, raw humors, crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind, but I profess myself no quack-salver; only thus much, by Hercules, I do hold it, and will affirm it before any prince in Europe, to be the most sovereign and precious weed that ever the earth tendered to the use of man."

"This speech," quoth Young Kno' well, aside, "would have done decently in a tobacco-trader's mouth."

In the same play-"Every Man in His Humor "-first performed 1598, the other side of the question comes from the mouth of Cob, the waterbearer, at whose house the boastful Bobadil resides, and who is thus described by his host, in contrast to Master Mathews, who, though his father is "a worshipful fishmonger, and so forth," does "creep and wriggle into acquaintance with all the gallants." "Oh! my guest," quoth Cob, "is a fine man! He does swear the legiblest of any man christened: by Saint George the foot of Pharaoh-the body of me-as I am a gentleman and a soldier-such dainty oaths! And, withal, he does take this same

filthy roguish Tobacco, the finest and cleanliest! it would do a man good to see the fume come forth out at's tonnels." Trying to amaze the jealousy of the suspicious Kitely, Cob tells the latter he saw no one to be kissed, unless they would have kissed the post in the middle of the warehouse; for there I left them all at their tobacco, with a plague."

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But the following more clearly shows the feeling that existed against Tobacco among the class of which Cob was a stage representative:

"By gad's me, I mar'l what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco! It's good for nothing but to choke a man and fill him full of smoke and embers. There were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for gesternight; one of them, they say, will ne'er 'scape it: he voided a bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks! an there were no wiser men than I, I'd have it present whipping, man or woman, that should but deal with a tobacco pipe: why, it will stifle them all in the end, as many as use it; it's little better than ratsbane or rosaker."

It will be noted that JONSON puts the praise of Tobacco into the mouths of the gallants, or would-be gallants, and its dispraise to the credit of the poorer classes, showing distinctly that if there was a fashionable party for, there was a popular party against it. It is likely that the latter, as in such cases, was mainly antagonistic to that which they could not obtain-Tobacco being an expensive indulgence. If SHAKSPERE did not wish to displease either party, it is even more evident that JONSON desired to please both. We are told that the speech of Bobadil epitomizes the sanative qualities of Tobacco, as given by CASPAR DURANTE, GOHORRI, EVERARD, and other medical writers. The passage alluding to the life-sustaining powers of Tobacco, without the use of food, is almost a literal translation from EVERARD, whose "Treatise on Tobacco was published in Holland a few years previ ous to the production of "Every Man in His Humor." It is asserted by others, as well, that by smoking, soldiers and sailors are enabled to endure hunger and thirst for a considerable time. Some remarkable instances of this quality in Tobacco are on record. PERE LAFITAU, in his account of the "Manners and Customs of the North American Indians," states that the Iroquois sometimes live for thirty continuous days without any other sustenance than the fume of Tobacco. The "Transactions of the Republic of Letters, 1685," gives a still more remarkable case, and one which appeals strongly to our marvellous, if not to our doubting faculties. The case is that of a lunatic in the hospital at Haarlem afflicted with religious madness. Fancying himself to be Messiah, he determined to prove his mission by fasting forty days and nights. From the 6th of December, 1684, to 15th of January, 1685, he tasted no kind of food, but smoked tobacco freely, occasionally washing his mouth out with a little water. satirical allusion, no doubt, to this supposed property in Tobacco, the author of the "Marrow of Compliment" wrote these lines:

Much meat doth gluttony procure

To feed men fat as swine;
But he's a frugal man indeed,
That on a leaf can dine!

He needs no napkin for his bands,
His fingers ends to wipe,
That hath his kitchen in a box,
His roast meat in a pipe!

So much in illustration of Bobadil's theory.

In his " Alchymist," produced when King JAMES had been some years on the throne, BEN JONSON suggests the arts and whole business of the tobacconists of the period, where Face introduces Abel Drugger to Subtle thus:

The "no goldsmith" allusion, like the postscript to a lady's letter, contains much practical pith. It is meant as a strong compliment, by being put in direct antithesis to "honest fellow;" and recommends him as one not accustomed to insure himself against the risk of bad debts by charging an exorbitant price for his tobacco to such of his customers who dealt with him on tick."

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King JAMES was very unpopular, and his opposition to Tobacco drove the commonality, as well as the court party, to cherish it. The "roguish tobacco, which was wont to be taken of gentlemen and gallants, was now made the companion of every tapster and horsekeeper." The poets, playwrights, actors and musicians, albeit not coming under the head of "tapsters or horsekeepers," became especially addicted to it; and a writer of the age, supposed to be the father of JOHN MILTON, describes many of the play-books and pamphlets as being conceived over-night by idle brains impregnated with tobacco smoke and mulled sack, and brought forth by the help and midwifery of a caudle next morning. Of course, in this state of affairs there was a new court party who echoed the sentiments of the king.

Dr. PETER HEYLIN, who, in the succeeding reign, with his "Mercurius Aulicus," proved himself a willing news manufacturer and monger in the STUART interest, published his "Microkosmos, a Little Description of the Great World," in 1624. Under the head of Peruana he takes occasion to vent a blast at Tobacco. "Here," he says, "is also great store of Tobacco, which, though in some respect being moderately taken, may be serviceable for physicke; yet (besides the consumption of the purse, and impairing of our inward parts) the immoderate, vaine, and phantasticall abuse of this hellish weed, corrupteth the naturall sweetnes of the breath, stupefieth the braine, and indeed is so prejudicial! to the generall esteeme of our countrymen, that one saith of them, Anglorum corpora qui huic plantæ tantopere

It may not be uninteresting to the lovers of the weed to know that it has given the title to at least two dramatic pieces. A drama, entitled "The Tobacconist," an alteration, by FRANCIS GENTLEMAN, from this piece of rare BEN JONSON's, was produced at London and Edinburgh in 1771, and probably afterwards, as it is to be found in the second volume of "The London Stage." A musical interlude, entitled "The Tobacco Box," was performed at the Haymarket, 1782. From the Biographia Dramatica we learn, however, that "it was neither more nor less than a song, of which the verses were sung alternately by a soldier and his wife on the eve of a battle."