Both Oxford and Cambridge have been famous for inveterate smokers.
Amongst them was the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow, who said "it helped his
thinking." His illustrious pupil, NEWTON, was scarcely less addicted
to the "Indian weed," and every body has heard of his _hapless
courtship_, when, in a moment of forgetfulness, he popped the lady's
finger into his burning pipe, instead of _popping the question_, and
was so chagrined, that he never could be persuaded to press the matter
further. Dr. Parr was allowed his pipe when he dined with the _first
gentleman in Europe_, George the Fourth, and when refused the same
indulgence by a lady at whose house he was staying, he told her, "she
was the greatest _tobacco-stopper_ he had ever met with." The
celebrated Dr. Farmer, of _black-letter_ memory, preferred the
comforts of the parlour of Emmanuel College, of which he was master,
and a "_yard of clay_" (there were no _hookahs_ in his day,) to a
bishopric, which dignity he twice refused, when offered to him by Mr.
Pitt. Another learned