(Vol. ix., p. 372.)
I was much pleased at reading MR. H. T. RILEY'S Note on this neglected
subject, in which I take no small interest, and feel happy in communicating
the little amount of information I possess regarding it. I have long
thought that the habit of smoking, I do not say tobacco, but some other
herb, is of much greater antiquity than is generally supposed. Tobacco
appears to have been introduced amongst us about 1586 by Captain R.
Greenfield and Sir Francis Drake (vide Brand's _Popular Antiquities_); but
I have seen pipe-bowls of English manufacture, which had been found
_beneath_ the encaustic pavement of Buildwas Abbey in Shropshire, which
gives a much earlier date to the practice of smoking _something_. I
remember an old man, a perfect Dominie Sampson in his way, who had been in
turn gaoler, pedagogue, and postmaster, at St. Briavel's, near Tintern
Abbey, habitually smoking the leaves of coltsfoot, which he cultivated on
purpose; he told me that he could seldom afford to use tobacco. The pipes
found in such abundance in the bed of the Thames, and everywhere in and
about London, I believe to be of Dutch manufacture; they are identical with
those which Teniers and Ostade put into the mouths of their boors, and have
for the most part a small pointed heel, a well-defined milled ring around
the lip, and bear no mark or name of the maker. Such were the pipes used by
the soldiers of the Parliament, to be found wherever they encamped. I will
only instance Barton, near Abingdon, on the property of G. Bowyer, Esq.,
M.P., where I have seen scores while shooting in the fields around the
ruins of the old fortified mansion. The English pipes, on the contrary,
have a very broad and flat heel, on which they may rest in an upright
position, so that the ashes might not fall out prematurely; and on this
heel the potter's name or device is usually stamped, generally in raised
characters, though sometimes they are incised. Occasionally the mark is to
be found on the side of the bowl. A short time ago I exhibited a series of
some five-and-twenty different types at the Archæological Institution, and
my collection has been enlarged considerably since. These were principally
found in Shropshire and Staffordshire, and appear for the most part to have
been made at Broseley. They are of a very hard and compact clay, which
retains the impress of the milled ring and the stamp in all its original
freshness. I shall feel much obliged by receiving any additional
information upon this subject.