An amusing treatise might be written on the variations in shape of the
common tobacco-pipe since its first introduction into the country. Hundreds
of specimens of old pipe-heads might soon be procured, and especially in
the neighbourhood of London, where the same ground has been tilled for
gardening purposes perhaps {373} some hundreds of years, and has received
fresh supplies year after year from the ash-bin and dust-heap. I have about
a dozen in my possession, which probably belong to various periods from the
beginning of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century. The
dearness of tobacco in the early times of its use is evinced by the
smallness of the bowls, for many of them would hold at most not half a
thimbleful of tobacco; while the shank, where it joins the bowl, is nearly
double the thickness of that in use at the present day. If I recollect
aright, the pipe as represented in Hogarth seems but little larger in the
bowl than that in use a century before; the shape being in both the same,
very much like that of a barrel. The sides of the bowl seem formerly to
have been made of double or treble the thickness of those now in use. This
will account for the good preservation in which they may be found after
having been in the ground one or two centuries. The clay tobacco-pipe
probably attained its present size and slimness, and (very nearly) its
present shape, about the beginning of this century. I am well aware that,
by many, all this will be esteemed as "in tenui labor," but, for my part, I
look upon no reminiscences of the past, however humble, as deserving to be
slighted or consigned to oblivion. Even the humble tobacco-pipe may be made
the vehicle of some interesting information. Will any of your
correspondents favour your other readers with some farther information on
this subject?