SOCIAL GOSSIP ABOUT THE WEED.
Why should we so much despise
So good and wholesome an exercise
As early and late, to meditate?
Thus think, and drink tobacco.
G. W.
Ancient and delightful George Wither, while suffering for conscience’
sake imprisonment in the Marshalsea, found a never-failing comfort in his
beloved Indian weed. Its soothing vapours moved him to meditation; the
earthen pipe, the burning weed, the vanishing fumes, and the ashes left
behind, were to him emblems of the transitory nature of man’s earthly
career. Musing thus, he poured forth his thoughts in a poem which has
taken a firmer hold on the popular taste than any other of the countless
songs composed on the subject of tobacco. It has undergone numerous
alterations, but in every instance for the worse. In a mutilated form,
and with a second part added, it is found among the ‘Gospel Sonnets’
of the Rev. Ralph Erskine, of the Scottish Church. It is the ‘Smoking
Spiritualized’ which is still in print among the ballad-vendors of the
east end of London. It reappeared with variations in Mr. J. H. Dixon’s
‘Songs and Ballads of the Peasantry of England’; and again in the Rev.
James Plumptre’s ‘Tobacco is an Indian weed.’ So popular had the song
become that Dr. Hague, in 1805, set the words to music, and Mr. Samuel
Wesley, at a later date, adapted them to a tune said to be still in
vogue. Yet, out of the multitude of admirers who so readily adopted and
adapted Wither’s song, no one seems to have cared to acknowledge the
source of his inspiration. But for the diligent research of Mr. Payne
Collier, the student might have remained forever in ignorance of its true
parentage. Turning to Mr. Chappell’s ‘Popular Music of the Olden Time’
we come upon the following passage relating to this song:—‘The earliest
copy’ says Mr. Chappell, ‘I have seen is in a manuscript volume of poetry
transcribed during James’s reign and which was kindly lent to me by Mr.
Payne Collier. It there bears the initials of G[eorge] W[ither] a very
likely person to have written such a song. A courtier poet would not have
sung the praises of smoking—so obnoxious to the King as to induce him
to write a _Counterblaste to Tobacco_—but Wither despised the servility
which would have tended to his advancement at Court.’ The original song,
the first verse of which is at the head of this chapter, runs as follows:—
The earthen pipe so lily white
Shows that thou art a mortal wight;
Even such—and gone with a small touch:
Thus think, and drink tobacco.
And when the smoke ascends on high,
Think on the worldly vanity
Of worldly stuff—’tis gone with a puff;
Thus think, and drink tobacco.
And when the pipe is foul within
Think how the soul’s defiled with sin—
To purge with fire it doth require:
Thus think, and drink tobacco.
Lastly, the ashes left behind
May daily shew to move the mind,
That to ashes and dust return we must:
Thus think, and drink tobacco.
As a soother of sorrow in wedded life, the story told by Camden of good
Richard Fletcher, Bishop of London, shews how over-indulgence in the weed
may carry its votary farther than he wots of. For his sins, people would
say, the Bishop had to endure the plague of a scolding wife. The burden
became greater than he could bear; he sighed for the peace that failed
him, and in his distress he fell to smoking so immoderately that at last
his weary spirit took flight on the wings of the weed to the realms of
rest he longed for. There is a pathos in the story that awakens a kindred
feeling; one can see the peace-loving prelate quietly slipping away from
the domestic storm, and, finding sanctuary in his attic, yielding himself
a willing martyr to the solace of St Nicotine. Indeed, if the truth must
be told, the clergy, ever since her advent in these islands, have been
noted votaries at her shrine. Instances crowd upon us.
A curious example is found in the pages of the astrologer Lilly’s
_Memoires_ published in 1715, thirty-four years after his death. We are
told of one, William Bredon, vicar of Thornton, in Buckinghamshire, who
was so far given over to the taking of tobacco in a pipe that when his
supply was run out he would cut off the ends of the bell-ropes and smoke
the bits. But this unworthy lover of his pipe was profoundly learned in
Eastern lore, particularly that which related to judicial astrology. It
may well be, that, along with his learning, he derived from the same
source his knowledge of hashish. The practice of inhaling the fumes of
burning hemp, was, as we have already seen, common in the near East,
before tobacco had reached the Moslem.
It is next to impossible to dip into the pages of the early playwrights
and pamphleteers without coming upon mirthful allusions to the new
indulgence. Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, Samuel Rowlands, and a host of
other writers in those jubilant days, found in the weed and the habits of
smokers a never-failing source for good-natured raillery.
In _Every Man out of his Humour_ we learn that the rage for tobacco had
spread to the provinces. One, Sogliardo, is described as essentially a
clown, yet so enamoured of the name of gentleman that he will have it
though he buys it. He comes to town every term to learn the manners of
polite society, and readily falls a victim to men of the Bobadil type,
who sees in the novelty a new field of enterprise. Jonson describes their
methods, and speaks of a bill posted in St. Paul’s churchyard notifying
fledglings from the country that instruction in the art of taking tobacco
can be arranged for. It affords us a glimpse of the smart men-about-town
three centuries ago who lay in wait for inexperienced youth. It runs as
follows:—
‘If this city, or the suburbs of the same, do afford any young
gentleman of the first, second, or third head, more or less,
whose friends are but lately deceased, and whose lands are but
new come into his hands, that, to be as exactly qualified as
the best of our ordinary gallants are, is affected to entertain
the most gentleman-like use of tobacco; as first to give it the
most exquisite perfume, then to know all the delicate sweet
forms for the assumption of it, as also the rare corollary and
the practice of the Cuban ebolition, Euripus, and Whiffe, which
he shall receive or take in here at London, and evaporate
at Uxbridge, or farther, if it pleases him. If there be any
such generous spirit that is truly enamoured of these good
faculties, may it please him but by a note of his hand, to
specify the place or ordinary where he uses to eat and lie, and
most sweet attendance with tobacco and pipes of the best sort
shall be ministered. _Stet, quæso, candide lector._
[Illustration: EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SMOKERS]
After King James had sent forth his famous _Counterblaste_ in 1604,
declaring to the world that tobacco was the ‘lively image and pattern
of hell,’ it was not unusual to hear the weed associated with the
arch enemy. And rare Ben would seem to have been nothing loth to trim
his sails to the new breeze. In his masque entitled _The Gipsies
Metamorphosed_ he is so considerate as to wish that his Majesty’s nose
may be protected from the smell of
Tobacco with the type
Of the Devil’s glyster pipe.
The play accorded so well with the King’s humour that he commanded a
repetition of the performance. At that time tobacco-smoking was commonly
indulged in at theatres. In _Bartholomew Fair_ a pleasure seeker, named
Coke, enters a puppet show and asks of the master, ‘Ha’ you none of your
pretty impudent boys, now, to bring stools, fill tobacco, fetch ale, and
beg money, as they have at other houses?’
We pass on to the pages of Thomas Dekker—Dekker the gay, the
light-hearted, and always good-humoured, who says of himself that, ‘the
imagination runs to and fro, the fantasie flies round about, the vital
spirits walk up and down, yea, the very pulses shew activities, and
with their hammers are still beating, so that in my very dreams it is
whispered in my ears that I must be up and doing something.’ Among his
many delightful sketches of social life in London, the _Gulls Hornbook_
may well rank first. He makes sport of the young gallants of the city who
affect the fashionable habit of ‘taking tobacco,’ and instructs them how
to handle, in the most approved style, the implements with which they
are to be provided. In the same bantering tone he apostrophises tobacco
thus: ‘Make me thine adopted heir, that, inheriting the virtues of thy
whiffs, I may distribute them among all nations, and make the fantastic
Englishman above all the rest more cunning in the distinction of thy
roll-Trinidado, leaf and pudding, than the whitest toothed blackamore in
all Asia.’
In one of those unaccountable freaks of temper which at times seem
to take possession of genius Jonson, in the _The Poetaster_ made an
unprovoked attack upon Dekker, who, in no way daunted, flew to arms, and
in his _Satiromastix_ or the _Untrussing of the Humerous Poet_, proved
himself to be no unworthy match for his more ponderous assailant. In
this masterpiece of Dekker’s we come upon the earliest allusion to women
smokers. Asinius Babo meeting with friends proffers his pipe saying,
‘’tis at your service, gallants, and the tobacco too; ’tis right good
pudding I can tell you: a lady or two took a pipeful or two at my hands
and praised it ’fore the heavens.’ We learn from Aubrey that in his day
(1680) it was considered very improper for ‘feamale persons’ to take
tobacco. But women’s curiosity respecting the new allurement to indolence
with which men were so greatly enamoured very naturally led them to
taste the forbidden leaf. Bearing on this point is a piquant story told
by Miss Pardoe in her admirable _History of the Court of Louis XIV_.
The Grand Monarque had a great aversion to tobacco, and no one ventured
to smoke in his presence. But his daughters had noticed how comfortable
and cosy the men of the Swiss Guard looked while smoking their pipes,
and longed for a more intimate acquaintance with the novelty. They
grew weary of the restraints of the court circle and sought freedom in
their own apartments. On one occasion, when the Dauphin had at a late
hour quitted the card-table, he heard noises of revelry while passing
their quarter of the Palace. Entering to ascertain the cause, he was
astonished to find the princesses engaged in smoking. Their pipes had
been borrowed from the officers, who doubtless were instructing them how
to make clouds, rings and squirts. Miss Pardoe speaks strongly; she says
that when the princesses became weary of the ‘gravity and etiquette of
the court circle they were accustomed to celebrate a species of orgie in
their own apartments, after supper.’ But after all were they not Eve’s
daughters—what else could be expected?
In England the paper warfare over the merit or demerit of the ‘Indian’s
weed,’ signalized by King James, lasted well through two centuries.
Beginning with some slight skirmishing, as in _Work for Chimney Sweepers_
we come to a doughty champion of the royal cause in the person of ‘Josuah
Sylvester, Gent:’ he who with quixotic valour sent forth a ‘Volley of
Holy Shot Thundered from Mount Helicon.’ In dedicatory lines addressed to
George, Duke of Buckingham, he invokes the aid of the royal favourite to
enable him to overthrow the
… Proud oppression
Of th’ Infidel, usurping faith’s possession,
That Indian tyrant, England’s only shame
Thousands of ours he here hath captive taken,
Of all degrees kept under slavish yoke
Their God, their good, King, country, friends, forsaken,
To follow follie, and to feed on smoke.
Scanning the horizon he discovers Satan, enraged, working in short
circuit two smoky engines—‘guns and tobocco pipes vented from the
infernal pit.’ In this turgid style he pours out his puerile conceits
much in the manner of his royal patron, whose good opinion he won so
fully that James made him his Court poet.
The levy of a duty on tobacco so excessive as that which King James
imposed namely, six shillings and tenpence—equivalent to about thirty
shillings of our present money—upon every pound weight imported or grown
in the country, coupled with great extravagance in its use brought ruin
to many families, just as does over-indulgence in strong drink to those
who are not satisfied with the moderation which reason dictates. In the
case of tobacco the ruin was in money, whereas with alcohol in excess
ruin comes to body and mind as well as purse. Our excellent guide along
the by-paths of literature, John Aubrey, from whom we have gleaned many
things respecting the use of tobacco, says, ‘In my early days (temp.
Charles the First) tobacco was sold for its weight in silver.’ And in
the family account-books of well-to-do people that have come to light
we get occasional glimpses of its cost. A book of household expenses
kept by Sir Henry Oglander, of Nunwell, in the Isle of Wight (1626),
contains an entry of five shillings paid for eight ounces of tobacco. The
price varies on different dates, according to the quality of the weed.
Virginian seems to have been the favourite growth, though Spanish is the
more frequently mentioned. A worthy old gentleman named Peter Campbell,
living in Derbyshire, was so incensed against the smoking habit that in
his Will, making over his household goods to his eldest son, Roger, he
inserted a special clause to the effect that if at any time either his
brothers or his sisters ‘fynd him smoking of tobacco he shall forfeit all
or their full valew.’ Roger, who loved his pipe, would be lucky indeed if
he escaped the watchful eyes of his five brothers and three sisters.
Sir Edwin Sandys, Member of Parliament for Pontefract, (1620) grew
alarmed at the prodigious quantity of tobacco consumed in this country,
and inquiring into the matter found that Spain was sending to England
tobacco to the value of £100,000 a year for which in payment ‘we sent our
cloths and other merchandise.… Nay, that sum will not pay for all the
tobacco we have from thence; they have more from us every year: £20,000.
So that there goes out of this kingdom as good as £120,000 for tobacco
every year!’ He would have opened wide his eyes with amazement if some
genius had whispered in his ear that under Edward VII. the duty alone on
the quantity consumed in these islands would amount to over £13,000,000
a year. The increased and constantly increasing consumption of tobacco,
prodigious as it was in the eyes of our forefathers, was not peculiar to
England. Dr. Everard in his treatise on the _Wonderful Virtues of Tobacco
taken in a Pipe_[11] says that its use had spread with amazing rapidity
all over the known world, and that its cultivation and manufacture gave
employment to millions of people who, were the consumption stopped, would
probably perish for want of food. He likens the rise and progress of the
industry to Elias’s cloud, ‘which was no bigger than a man’s hand.… It
hath suddenly covered the face of the Earth: the low countries, Germany,
Poland, Arabia, Persia, Turkey; almost all countries drive a trade in
it, and there is no commodity that hath advanced so many small fortunes
to gain great estates in the world.’ The translator adds, ‘Scholars take
it much, and many grave and great men take tobacco to make them more
serviceable in their callings.… Soldiers and seamen cannot but want it
during their arduous duties in cold and tempestuous weather. Farmers,
ploughmen, porters, labourers, plead for it, saying, they find great
refreshment by it.’
English smokers cared little for the fulminations against the indulgence
issued from high places. Even a taxation which in these days would
provoke a riot merely drew from them a mild growl. An example of this
more excellent way is found in Dr. Barclay’s _Nepenthes_, or the _Vertues
of Tobacco_. In the tranquil spirit of a devotee of St Nicotine he
addresses to ‘My Lord Bishop Murray’ the following lines:
The statelie, rich, late conquer’d Indian plaines,
Foster a plant, the princess of all plants,
Which Portugall, after peril and paines,
To Europe brought, as it most justly vaunts;
This plant at home the people and priests assure,
Of his goodwill, whom they as God adore;
Both here and there it worketh wonderous cure,
And hath much heavenlie vertue hid in store.
A stranger plant shipwrecked on our coast,
Is come to help this colde phlegmatic soyle,
Yet cannot live for calumnie and boast,
In danger daylie of some greater broyle.
My Lord, this sacred herbe which never offendit,
Is forced to crave your favour to defend it.
The author’s exalted idea about the great value of the weed was a reflex
of the Indian’s belief in its all-healing properties, a notion which
through the Spaniards and Portuguese had become the common property
of Europe. This is the animating thought running through the work. He
has set his heart upon curing suffering humanity of every malady, and
he complacently likens himself to Hercules going out into the world to
wage war on disease and corruption. ‘I have armed myself with a box for
his bag,’ says the learned doctor, ‘and a pipe for his club; a box to
conserve my tobacco, and a pipe to use it.’ He foresees a time coming
when the medicinal virtues of the herb will be so well understood that
the services of physicians may be dispensed with, particularly in cases
of defluxion and catarrh. Warming to his work and holding up the native
home of the plant to be a ‘Country which God hath honoured and blessed
with this holy herbe,’ he flourishes his club defiantly in the face of
‘the unlearned leiches’ who dare to say evil things about Nicotiana;
‘God willing,’ he means to ‘overcome many maladies.’ In practical
work, however, though equally earnest, he is a long way behind his
contemporary, Dr. Gardiner, whose _Trial of Tobacco_ has already been
noticed.
By the middle of the seventeenth century, tobacco-smoking had become a
confirmed habit even in remote rural districts, and was duly recognised
and provided for by every housewife. Monsieur Jorevin de Rochefort in
his travels in England (1672) tells a homely story of his sitting down
to supper with a friend in Worcester, where, on the meal being finished,
they set on the table half a dozen pipes and a packet of tobacco for
smoking. On inquiry he was told that it was a common practice to smoke
after supper, indulged in by both men and women, who said that without
tobacco one cannot live in England, for the smoke dissipates the evil
humours of the brain. He goes on to relate his further experience on the
next day, saying:
‘Whilst we were walking about the town he asked me if it was the custom
in France, as in England, for children on setting out for school to carry
in their satchel along with their books a pipe of tobacco, which their
mother had taken care to fill early in the morning, in the belief that
it would serve them instead of breakfast.’ Surely our French friend was
grossly imposed upon. No English mother would for a moment entertain
such a notion. We are next told that at the accustomed hour every one
laid aside his book to light his pipe; and that the master smoked with
them and taught the youngsters how to hold their pipes and draw in
the tobacco-smoke; thus using them to the habit from youth, believing
it absolutely necessary for health’s sake. The story told him by his
Worcester friend put him in mind of a Spaniard whom he had met at the
seaport of Calabria. The man, not being able to procure tobacco, cut
off a piece of the cable with which he filled his pipe and drew down the
smoke thereof as if it were the precious weed. He speaks, also, of an
Irishman who falling ill was not allowed his usual pipe of tobacco. He
submitted for some time, but he became so low and so melancholy that he
could take nothing but a little tobacco, which was at last permitted him,
with the result that in a short time he recovered perfect health. ‘I have
known,’ says Rochefort, ‘several persons who, not content with smoking in
the day, went to bed with their pipes in their mouths. Others who have
risen in the night to take tobacco with as much pleasure as they would
have received in drinking Alicant or Greek wine.’ Profligate smokers such
as these deserve no encouragement or sympathy; they rank in the class of
the besotted.
Rarely do we meet with more sympathetic words in favour of the weed than
in Mission’s _Memories of Travels over England_, which he published in
1697. Tobacco-smoking, he says, was commonly practised both by men and
women, particularly in country places. His observations led him to remark
that smoking makes the generality of Englishmen taciturn, thoughtful,
and, alas, melancholy; he adds that the use of tobacco ‘not only breeds
profound theologists, but also begets moral philosophers.’ And in a
sonnet, which bears some resemblance to the verses of George Wither, he
shows us that he had himself imbibed something of the melancholy and
philosophic spirit he speaks of. The lines run as follows:
Sweet smoking pipe; bright glowing stove,
Companion still of my retreat,
Thou dost my gloomy thoughts remove,
And purge my brain with gentle heat.
Tobacco, charmer of my mind,
When like the meteor’s transient gleam,
Thy substance gone to air, I find,
I think, alas, my life’s the same!
What else than lighted dust am I?
Thou show’st me what my fate will be;
And when thy sinking ashes die,
I learn that I must end like thee.
A more robust, nay, hilarious, spirit pervades the utterances of Dr.
Henry Aldrich, Dean of Christchurch, Oxford, who in devotion to the
weed surpassed even Dr. Parr of cloud-compelling fame. The genial don
had found in the pipe a solace for his somewhat fretful temperament; it
disposed him to look upon life with the benevolent composure of a mind
at peace with the world. Indeed, the love he bore his pipe, says his
biographer, Sir John Hawkins, was so excessive as to be an entertaining
topic of discourse in the University. The belief that the Dean and his
pipe were inseparable, led to wagers being laid on the chance of finding
him without it. With the keen wits for fun and mischief, characteristic
of schoolboys, students would now and then warily peer into his sanctum
at early morn or dewy eve, in the hope of settling the disputed point. On
one occasion the doctor, learning the object of their visit at an early
hour in the morning, readily fell in with their humour, and declared to
the foremost boy, that, ‘Your friend has lost. I am not smoking, only
filling my pipe.’ The Dean’s geniality comes out well in his humorous
‘Catch on Tobacco,’ which appeared in his second book of _The Pleasant
Musical Companion_, published in 1687. He tells us that it is ‘to be sung
by four men at the time of smoking their pipes.’ The first verse is as
follows:—
Good! good, indeed!
The herb’s good weed;
Fill thy pipe, Will, and I prithee, Sam, fill,
For sure we may smoke and yet sing still;
For what say the learned? _Vita fumus_,
’Tis what you and I, and he and I, and all of us _sumus_.
If the so-called ‘Smoking Concerts’ of to-day were carried out in strict
accordance with the founder’s instructions, each being supplied with the
legitimate materials, the public would then get the amusement implied in
the designation, ‘Smoking Concert.’
Before taking leave of the amiable Dean, it is but just to his memory
to say a word on his higher claims to admiration. It is recorded of
him that he distinguished himself in every branch of divine and human
learning; that he promoted religion and virtue with application and zeal
during his tenure of office at the noble college of Christchurch, much of
whose present lustre and beauty it owes to his efforts. His biographer
ranks him among the greatest masters in the composition of church music;
his anthems number about twenty. Yet, being a man of genial humour, he
found diversion for his leisure moments in the production of pieces of a
lighter description, as, ‘Hark! the bonny Christchurch Bells,’ which at
one time had a great vogue.