I have witnessed the representation of the _Twelfth Night_ as often,
during the last five-and-forty years, as I have had an opportunity;
and, in every instance, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and the Clown, in their
rollicking orgies, _smoke tobacco_. Now, this must be an "interpolation
of the players;" for not only was tobacco unknown in Illyria, at the
period of the story, but _Shakspeare does not once name tobacco in his
works, and, therefore_, was not likely to give a stage-direction for the
use of it. The great poet is freely blamed for anachronisms; it is but
fair he should have due credit when he avoids them. The stories of his
plays are all antecedent to his own time, therefore he never mentions
either the _drinking of tobacco_, or the tumultuous scenes of the
_ordinary_ which belonged to it, and which are so constantly met with in
his cotemporary dramatists. I see there is a note in my commonplace-book,
after some remarks upon Green's _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, "that
this play, though written by a pedant, and a Master of Arts, contains
more anachronisms than any one play of Shakspeare's."
Can any of your correspondents learned in stage traditions say when this
"smoking interpolation" was first made?
* * * * *
But, Sir, I think I shall surprise some of your readers by pointing out
another instance of the absence of tobacco or smoking. In the _Arabian
Night's Entertainments_, which are said to be such faithful pictures of
oriental manners, there is no mention of the pipe. Neither is coffee to
be met with in those tales, so delightful to all ages. We with difficulty
imagine an oriental without his _chibauk_; and yet it is certain they
knew nothing of this luxury before the sixteenth century. At present,
such is the almost imperious necessity felt by the Turk for smoking
and coffee, that as soon as the gun announces the setting of the sun,
during the fast of the Ramada, before he thinks of satisfying his craving
stomach with any solid food, he takes his cup of coffee and lights his
pipe.--As I think it dishonest to deck ourselves with knowledge that is
not self-acquired, I confess to the having but just read this "note"
in the last number of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, in a fine work upon
America by the celebrated savant, M. Ampère.