TOBACCO IN EUROPE.
The discovery of the tobacco plant in America by European voyagers
aroused their cupidity no less than their curiosity. They saw in its
use by the Indians a custom which, if engrafted upon the civilization
of the Old World, would prove a source of revenue commensurate with
their wildest visions of power and wealth. This was particularly the
case with the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors, whose thirst for gold
was gratified by its discovery. The finding by the Spaniards of gold,
silver, and the balmy plant, and by the Portuguese of valuable and
glittering gems, opened up to Spain and Portugal three great sources
of wealth and power. But while the Spaniards were the first
discoverers of the plant there seems to be conflicting opinions as to
which nation first began its culture, and whether the plant was
cultivated first in the Old World or in the New. Humboldt says:--
"It was neither from Virginia nor from South America, but
from the Mexican province of Yucatan that Europe received
the first tobacco seeds about the year 1559.[20] The
Spaniards became acquainted with tobacco in the West India
Islands at the end of the 15th Century, and the cultivation
of Tobacco preceded the cultivation of the potato in Europe
more than one hundred and twenty years. When Sir Walter
Raleigh brought tobacco from Virginia to England in 1586,
whole fields of it were already cultivated in Portugal.[21]
It was also previously known in France."
[Footnote 20: Mussey in his Essay on Tobacco records
"That Cortez sent a specimen of the plant to the king of
Spain in 1519." Yucatan was discovered by Hernandez
Cordova in 1517, and in 1519 was first settled.]
[Footnote 21: Spain began its culture in Mexico on the
coast of Caracas at the islands of St. Domingo and
Trinidad, and particularly in Louisiana.]
Another author says of its introduction into Europe:--
"The seeds of the tobacco plant were first brought to Europe
by Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo, who introduced it into
Spain, where it was first cultivated as an ornamental plant,
till Monardes[22] extolled it as possessed of medicinal
virtues."[23]
[Footnote 22: Pourchat declares that the Portuguese
brought it into Europe from Tobago, an island in the
West Indies; but this is hardly probable, as the island
was never under the Portuguese dominion.]
[Footnote 23: Monardes wrote upon it only from the small
account he had of it from the Brazilians.]
Murray says of the first cultivation of tobacco and potatoes in the
Old World:--
"Amidst the numerous remarkable productions ushered into the
Old Continent from the New World, there are two which stand
pre-eminently conspicuous from their general adoption.
Unlike in their nature, both have been received as extensive
blessings--the one by its nutritive powers tends to support,
the other by its narcotic virtues to soothe and comfort the
human frame--the potato and tobacco; but very different was
the favor with which these plants were viewed. The one long
rejected, by the slow operation of time, and, perhaps, of
necessity, was at length cherished, and has become the
support of millions, but nearly one hundred and twenty years
passed away before even a trial of its merits was attempted;
whereas, the tobacco from Yucatan, in less than seventy
years after the discovery, appears to have been extensively
cultivated in Portugal, and is, perhaps, the most generally
adopted superfluous vegetable product known; for sugar and
opium are not in such common use. The potato by the starch
satisfies the hunger; the tobacco by its morphia calms its
turbulence of the mind. The former becomes a necessity
required, the latter a gratification sought for."
It would appear then that the year 1559 was about the period of the
introduction of tobacco into Europe. Phillip II. of Spain sent Oviedo
to visit Mexico and note its productions and resources; returning he
presented "His Most Catholic Majesty" with the seeds of the plant. In
the following year it was introduced into France and Italy. It was
first brought to France by Jean Nicot of Nismes in Languedoc, who was
sent as ambassador to Sebastian, King of Portugal, and who obtained
while at Lisbon some tobacco seed from a Dutch merchant who had
brought it from Florida.[24] Nicot returned to France in 1561, and
presented the Queen, Catherine de Medicis, with a few leaves of the
plant.[25]
[Footnote 24: Parkinson in his Herball [London, 1640]
says:--"It is thought by some that John Nicot, this
Frenchman, being agent in Portugall for the French King,
sent this sort of tobacco [Brazil] and not any other to
the French Queene, and is called therefore herba Regina,
and from Nicotiana, which is probably because the
Portugalis and not the Spaniards were masters of Brazile
at that time."]
[Footnote 25: "Sir John Nicot sent some seeds of it into
France, to King Francis II., the Queen Mother, and Lord
Jarnac, Governor of Rochel, and several others of the
French Lords."]
As the history of Nicot is so intimately connected with that of the
plant, a short sketch of this original importer will doubtless be
interesting to all lovers of the weed:--
"John Nicot, Sieur de Villemain, was born at Nismes in 1530,
and died at Paris in 1600. He was the son of a notary at
Nismes, and started in life with a good education, but with
no fortune. Finding that his native town offered no suitable
or sufficient field for his energies, he went to Paris and
strove hard to extend his studies as a scholar and his
connections as an adventurer. He made the acquaintance of
some courtiers, who felt or affected an interest in learning
and in learned men. His manners were insinuating; his
character was pliable. When presented at court he succeeded
in gaining the esteem and confidence of Henry II., the
husband of Catherine de Medicis. Francis II., the son of
Henry II., and the first husband of Mary Stuart, continued
to Nicot the favor of which Henry II. had deemed him worthy,
and sent him in 1560 as ambassador to Sebastian, King of
Portugal. He was successful in his mission. But it was
neither his talents as a diplomatist, nor his remarkable
mind, nor his solid erudition, which made Nicot immortal. It
was by popularizing tobacco in France that he gained a
lasting fame.
"It is said that it was at Lisbon that Nicot became
acquainted with the extraordinary properties of tobacco. But
it is likewise stated with quite as much confidence, that a
Flemish merchant, who had just returned from America,
offered Nicot at Bordeaux, where they met, some seeds of the
tobacco, telling him of their value. The seeds Nicot sent to
Catherine de Medicis, and on arriving in Paris he gave her
some leaves of tobacco. Hence, when tobacco began to creep
into use in France it was called Queen's Herb or Medicean
Herb.[26] The cultivation of tobacco, except as a fancy
plant, did not begin in France till 1626; and John Nicot
could have had no presentiment of the agricultural,
commercial, financial and social importance which tobacco
was ultimately to assume. Nicot published two works. The
first was an edition of the History of France or of the
Franks, in Latin, written by a Monk called Aimonious, who
lived in the tenth century. The second was a 'Treasury of
the French Language, Ancient and Modern.'"
[Footnote 26: "The Abbe Jacques Gohory, the author of
the first book written on tobacao, proposed to call it
Catherinaine or Medicee, to record the name of Medicis
and the medicinal virtues of the plant; but the name of
Nicot superseded these, and botanists have perpetuated
it in the genus _Nicotiana_."--_Le Maout and Decaisne._]
Stevens and Liebault in the "Country Farm"[27] give the following
account of its early introduction into France and the wonderful cures
produced by its use:
[Footnote 27: London 1606.]
"Nicotiana though it have (has) beene but a while knowne in
France yet it holdeth the first and principall place amongst
Physicke herbs, by reason of his singular and almost diuine
(divine) vertues, such as you shall heare of hereafter,
whereof (because none either of the old or new writers that
have written of the nature of plants, have said anything), I
am willing to lay open the whole history, as I have come by
it through a deere friend of mine, the first author,
inventor, and bringer of this herb into France: as also of
many both Spaniards, Portugals, and others which have
travelled into Florida, a country of the Indians, from
whence this herbe came, to put the same in writing to
relieve such griefe and travell, as have heard of this
herbe, but neither know it nor the properties thereof. This
herbe is called Nicotiana of the name of an ambassador which
brought the first knowledge of it into this realme, in like
manner as many plants do as yet retaine the names of
certaine Greekes and Romans, who being strangers in divers
countries, for their common-wealth's service, have from
thence indowed their own countree with many plants, whereof
there was no knowledge before. Some call it the herbe of
Queen mother, because the said ambassador Lord Nicot did
first send the same unto the Queen mother,[28] (as you shall
understand by and by) and for being afterwards by her given
to divers others to plant and make to grow in this country.
Others call it by the name of the herbe of the great Prior,
because the said Lord a while after sailing into these
western seas, and happening to lodge neere unto the said
Lord ambassador of Lisbone, gathered divers plants thereof
out of his garden, and set them to increase here in France,
and there in greater quantitie, and with more care than any
other besides him, he did so highly esteeme thereof for the
exceeding good qualities sake.
[Footnote 28: George Buchanan, the Scotch Philosopher
and poet tutor of James I., had a strong aversion to
Catherine of Medicis, and in one of his Latin epigrams,
alludes to the herb being called _Medicie_, advising all
who valued their health to shun it, not so much from its
being naturally hurtful, but that it needs must become
poisonous if called by so hateful a name.]
"The Spaniards call it Tobaco, it were better to call it
Nicotiana, after the name of the Lord who first sent it into
France, to the end that we may give him the honor which he
hath deserved of us, for having furnished our land with so
rare and singular an herbe: and thus much for the name, now
listen unto the whole historie: Master John Nicot, one of
the king's counsell, being ambassador for his Maiestie
(Majesty) in the realme of Portiugall, in the yeere of our
Lord God, 1559. 60. and 61. went on a day to see the
monuments and northie places of the said king of Portiugall:
at which time a gentleman keeper of the said monuments
presented him with this herbe as a strange plant brought
from Florida. The nobleman Sir Nicot having procured it to
growe in his garden, where it had put forth and multiplied
very greatly, was aduertifed (notified) on a daie by one of
his pages, that a yoong boie kinsman of the said page, had
laide (for triall sake) the said herbe, pressed, the
substance and juice and altogether, upon an ulcer which he
had upon his cheeke, neere unto his nose, next neighbor to a
_Noli me tangere_, (a cancer) as having already seazed upon
the cartilages, and that by the use thereof it was become
marvellous well: upon this occasion the nobleman Nicot
called the boie to him, and making him to continue the
applying of this herbe for eight or ten days, the _Noli me
tangere_ became thoroughly kild: nowe they had sent
oftetimes unto one of the king's most famous phisitions, the
said boie during the time of this worke and operation to
make and see the proceeding and working of the said
Nicotiana, and having in charge to do the same until the end
of ten days, the said phisition then beholding him, assured
him that the _Noli me tangere_ was dead, as indeed the boie
never felt anything of it at any time afterward.
"Some certain time after, one of the cooks of the said
ambassador having almost all his thombe (thumb) cut off from
his hand, with a great kitchin knife, the steward running
unto the said Nicotiana, made to him use of it five or six
dressings, by the ende of which the wounde was healed. From
this time forward this herbe began to become famous in
Lisbon, where the king of Portiugal's court was at that
time, and the vertues thereof much spoken of, and the common
people began to call it the ambassador's herbe. Now upon
this occasion there came certain days after, a gentleman
from the fields being father unto one of the pages of the
said Lord ambassador, who was troubled with an ulcer in his
legge of two years continuance, and craved of the said Lord
some of his herbe, and using it in manner afore mentioned,
he was healed by the end of ten or twelve daies. After this
yet the herbe grewe still in greater reputation, inasmuch as
that many hasted out of all corners to get some of this
herbe. And among the rest, there was one woman which had a
great ring worme, covering all her face like a mask, and
having taken deepe roote, to whom the said Lord caused this
Petum to be given, and withall the manner of using it to be
told her, and at the end of eight or ten daies, this woman
being thoroughly cured, came to shewe herself unto the said
Lord, and how that she was cured. There came likewise a
captain bringing with him his son diseased with the king's
evill, unto the said Lord Ambassador, for to send him into
France, upon whom there was some triall made of the said
herbe, whereupon within four daies he began to show great
signs and tokens of healing, and in the end was thoroughly
cured of his king's evil."
Italy received the first plant from Santa Croce,[29] who, like Nicot,
obtained the seed in Lisbon. In 1575 first appeared a figure of the
plant in Andre Theret's "Cosmographie," which was but an imperfect
representation of the plant. It was supposed by many on its discovery
to grow like the engraving given--in form resembling a tree or shrub
rather than an herb. Tobacco was first brought to England by Sir John
Hawkins, who obtained the plant in Florida in 1565, and afterwards by
Sir Francis Drake.[30] The first planters of it in England were said
to be Captain Grenfield and Sir Francis Drake. One account of its
introduction into England is as follows:
[Footnote 29: The Pied Bull Inn, at Islington, was the
first house in England where tobacco was smoked, while
Moll Cut-Purse, a noted pickpocket who flourished in the
time of Charles II., is said to have been the first
Englishwoman who smoked tobacco.]
[Footnote 30: "It was introduced, about 1520, into
Portugal and Spain by Doctor Hernandez of Toledo; into
Italy by Thornabon and the Cardinal de Sainte-Croif,
into England by Captain Drake and into France by Andre
Theret, a gray friar."--_Le Maout and Decaisne's General
System of Botany_ (Paris 1868).]
"The plant was first used by Sir Walter Raleigh and others,
who had acquired a taste for it in Virginia.[31] Among the
natives the usual mode employed in smoking the plant was by
means of hollow canes, and pipes made of wood and decorated
with copper and green stones. To deprive it of its acidity,
some of the natives were wont to pass the smoke through
bulbs containing water, in which aromatic and medicinal
herbs had been infused."
[Footnote 31: Short says of its introduction into
England: "Sir Walter Raleigh's Marriners, under Mr.
Ralph Lane, his Agent in Virginia first brought this
Commodity into England Anno 1584; and that famous
Proprietor of this Plantation foresaw good reasons to
introduce the use of it, however King James might
afterwards, through his own personal Distaste both of it
and, him, wrote his Counterblast against it; a work
surely consistent with the Pen of no Prince, but one of
his Politicks."]
[Illustration: Old engraving of tobacco.]
Neander ascribes this invention to the Persians; but Magnenus rather
attributes it to the Dutch and English, to the latter of whom attaches
the credit of having invented the clay pipes of modern times. Some
writers have concluded that the plant served as a narcotic in some
parts of Asia. Liebault thinks it was known in Europe[32] many years
before the discovery of the New World, and asserts that the plant had
been found in the Ardennes. Magnenus, however, claims its origin as
transatlantic and affirms as his belief that the winds had doubtless
carried the seeds from one continent to the other. Pallos says that
among the Chinese, and among the Mongol tribes who had the most
intercourse with them, the custom of smoking is so general, so
frequent, and has become so indispensable a luxury; the tobacco purse
affixed to their belt so necessary an article of dress; the form of
the pipes, from which the Dutch seem to have taken the model of
theirs, so original; and, finally, the preparation of the leaves so
peculiar, that they could not possibly derive all this from America by
way of Europe, especially as India, where the practice of smoking is
not so general, intervenes between Persia and China. Meyen also states
that the consumption of tobacco in the Chinese empire is of immense
extent, and the practice seems to be of great antiquity, "for on very
old sculptures I have observed the very same tobacco pipes which are
still used." Besides, we now know that the plant which furnishes the
Chinese tobacco is even said to grow wild in the East Indies.
[Footnote 32: James the First also inclines to this
belief, declaring tobacco to be "a common herb which
(though under divers names) grows almost everywhere."]
"Tobacco," says Loudon, "was introduced into the county of
Cork, with the potatoe, by Sir Walter Raleigh." A quaint
writer of this period says of the plant: "Tobacco, that
excellent plant, the use whereof (as of fifth element) the
world cannot want, is that little shop of Nature, wherein
her whole workmanship is abridged; where you may see earth
kindled into fire, the fire breathe out an exhalation, which
entering in at the mouth walks through the regions of a
man's brain, drives out all ill vapors but itself, draws
down all bad humors by the mouth, which in time might breed
a scab over the whole body, if already they have not; a
plant of singular use; for, on the one side Nature being an
enemy to vacuity and emptiness and on the other, there being
so many empty brains in the world as there are, how shall
Nature's course be continued? How shall those empty brains
be filled but with air, Nature's immediate instrument to
that purpose? If with air, what so proper as your fume; what
fume so healthful as your perfume, what perfume so sovereign
as tobacco. Besides the excellent edge it gives a man's wit,
as they but judge that have been present at a feast of
tobacco, where commonly all good wits are consoled; what
variety of discourse it begets, what sparks of wit it
yields?"[33]
[Footnote 33: A writer in the "New England Magazine"
says in a different strain: "This is the enemy that men
put in their mouths, to steal away their health. This
has filled the camp, the court, the grove. It is found
in the pulpit, the senate, the bar and the boudoir."]
The name of Sir Walter is intimately connected with the history of
tobacco, and is associated with many of the brilliant exploits and
explorations during the reign of the illustrious Elizabeth.[34] His
name has come down to us as being that of the first smoker of tobacco
in England,[35] and many amusing anecdotes are told of him and the new
custom which he introduced and sanctioned. Dixon has given us the
following vivid picture of the great Elizabethan navigator:
[Footnote 34: Thorpe, in his "History and Mystery of
Tobacco," relates the following anecdote: "Tradition
says, that in the time of Queen Elizabeth Sir Walter
Raleigh used to sit at his door with Sir Hugh Middleton
and smoke."]
[Footnote 35: Dr. Thomas Short, in his work "Discourses
on Tea, Tobacco, Punch, &c," (London 1750,) says of the
original smoker: "Sir Walter was the first that brought
the Custom of smoking it into Britain, upon his return
from America; for he saw the natives of Florida, Brazil
and other places of the Indies, smoak it thus, they hung
about their Necks little Pipes or Horns made of the
Leaves of the Date Tree, or of Reeds or Rushes; and at
the ends of them they put several dry Tobacco Leaves
twisted and broken, and set the ends of them on fire,
and sucked in as much of the smoak as they could."]
"In a pleasant room of Durham House, in the Strand,--a room
overhanging a lovely garden, with the river, the old bridge,
the towers of Lambeth Palace, and the flags of Paris Garden
and the Globe in view,--three men may have often met and
smoked a pipe in the days of Good Queen Bess, who are dear
to all readers of English blood; because, in the first
place, they were the highest types of our race in genius and
in daring; in the second place because the work of their
hands has shaped the whole after-life of their countrymen in
every sphere of enterprise and thought. That splendid Durham
House, in which the nine-days queen had been married to
Guilford Dudley, and which had afterwards been the
town-house of Elizabeth, belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh, by
whom it was held on leave from the queen. Raleigh, a friend
of William Shakespeare and the players, was also a friend of
Francis Bacon and the philosophers. Raleigh is said to have
founded the Mermaid Club; and it is certain that he numbered
friends among the poets and players. The proofs of his
having known Shakespeare, though indirect, are strong. Of
his long intercourse with Bacon every one is aware. Thus it
requires no effort of the fancy to picture these three men
as lounging in a window of Durham House, puffing the new
Indian weed from silver bowls, discussing the highest themes
in poetry and science, while gazing on the flower-beds and
the river, the darting barges of dames and cavalier, and the
distant pavilions of Paris Garden and the Globe."
Its use by so distinguished a person as Raleigh was equivalent to its
general introduction.[36] Aubrey says:
[Footnote 36: So common was the indulgence that in 1600,
only seventeen years after Sir Francis Drake returned
from America, and set the example of using tobacco, the
French Embassador writes in his dispatches to Paris,
that the peers, while engaged in the trials of Essex and
Southampton, deliberated upon their verdicts with pipes
in their mouths!]
"He was the first that brought tobacco into England, and
into fashion. In our part--Malmsbury Hundred--it came first
into fashion by Sir Walter Long. They had first silver
pipes. The ordinary sort made use of a walnut shell and a
strawe. I have heard my grandfather Lyte say that one pipe
was handed from man to man round the table. Sir Walter
Raleigh standing in a stand at Sir Ro. Poyntz parke at Acton
tooke a pipe of tobacco, which made the ladies quitte it
till he had donne."
[Illustration: Sir Walter Raleigh.]
A writer has truthfully said in regard to associating the name and use
of the plant with the primitive users of it.
"The ambitious sought fame by associating themselves with
the introduction of the plant and its cultivation; hence we
find it named after cardinals, legates, and embassadors,
while in compliment to Catherine, wife of Henry the Second,
it was called the Queen's herb."
Kings now rushed into the tobacco trade. Those of Spain took the lead,
and became the largest manufacturers of snuff and cigars in
Christendom, and the royal workshops of Seville are still the most
extensive in Europe. Other monarchs monopolized the business in their
dominions, and all began to reap enormous profits from it, as most do
at this day. In the year 1615 tobacco was first planted in Holland;
and in Switzerland in 1686. As soon as its cultivation became general
in Spain and Portugal the tobacco trade was "farmed out," bringing an
enormous revenue to those kingdoms. About the beginning of the
Seventeenth Century the Portuguese introduced into Hindostan and
Persia[37] two things, pine-apples and tobacco. To the pine-apples no
objection seems to have been made; but to the tobacco the most
strenuous resistance was offered by the sovereigns of the two
countries. Spite, however, of punishments and prohibitions the use of
tobacco spread with the rapidity of lightning.
[Footnote 37: Savary says that tobacco has been known
among the Persians for upwards of 400 years, and
supposes that they received it from Egypt, and not from
the East Indies.]
In England, tobacco taking soon became a favorite custom not only with
the loiterers about taverns and other public places, but among the
courtiers of Elizabeth. Smoking was called drinking tobacco, as the
fashionable method was to "put it through the nose" or exhale it
through the nostrils. At this period tobacco seemed to have nearly the
same effect as it did upon the Indian, producing a sort of
intoxication; thus in "The Perfuming of Tobacco" (1611) it is said:
"The smoke of tobacco drunke or drawen by a pipe, filleth
the membranes of the braine, and astonisheth and filleth
many persons with such joy and pleasure, and sweet losse of
senses, that they can by no means be without it."
The term "drinking tobacco" was not confined to England, but was used
in Holland, France, Spain and Portugal, as the same method of blowing
the smoke through the nostrils, seemed to be everywhere in vogue.
The use of tobacco increased very rapidly soon after its importation
from Virginia. The Spaniards and Portuguese had hitherto monopolized
the trade, so that it brought enormous prices, some kinds selling for
its weight in silver. As soon as its culture commenced in Virginia the
demand for West India tobacco lessened and Virginia leaf soon came
into favor, owing not more to the lowering of price than to the
quality of the leaf.[38] This was about 1620, which some writers have
called the golden age of tobacco. It had now become a prime favorite
and was used by nearly all classes. Poets and dramatists sung its
praises, while others wrote of its wonderful medicinal qualities.[39]
Fops and knaves alike indulged in its use.
[Footnote 38: Neander, in his work on "Tobacologia"
(London, 1622), mentions eighteen varieties of tobacco,
or at least localities from where it was shipped to
London, among which are the following: Varinas
(considered the best), Brazil, Maracay, Orinoco,
Margarita, Caracas, Cumana, Amazon, Virginia,
Philippines, St. Lucia, Trinidad, and St. Domingo.]
[Footnote 39: "The first author (says an English writer)
who wrote of this Plant was Charles Stephanus, in 1564.
This was a mean, short, inaccurate Draught, till Dr.
John Liebault wrote a whole Discourse of it next year,
and put it into his second Book of Husbandry, which was
every year reprinted with additions and alterations, for
twenty years after. He had a large Correspondence, a
good Intelligence, and wrote the best of the age, and
gathered the greatest stock of experience about this new
Plant."]
"About the latter end of the sixteenth century, tobacco was
in great vogue in London, with wits and 'gallants,' as the
dandies of that age were called. To wear a pair of velvet
breeches, with panes or slashes of silk, an enormous
starched ruff, a gilt handled sword, and a Spanish dagger;
to play at cards or dice in the chambers of the
groom-porter, and smoke tobacco in the tilt-yard or at the
play-house, were then the grand characteristics of a man of
fashion. Tobacconists' shops were then common; and as the
article, which appears to have been sold at a high price,
was indispensable to the gay 'man about town,' he generally
endeavored to keep his credit good with his
tobacco-merchant. Poets and pamphleteers laughed at the
custom, though generally they seem to have no particular
aversion to an occasional treat to a sober pipe and a poute
of sack. Your men of war, who had served in the Low
Countries, and who taught young gallants the noble art of
fencing, were particularly fond of tobacco; and your
gentlemen adventurers, who had served in a buccaneering
expedition against the Spaniards, were no less partial to
it. Sailors--from the captain to the ship-boy--all affected
to smoke, as if the practice was necessary to their
character; and to 'take tobacco' and wear a silver whistle,
like a modern boatswain's mate, was the pride of a
man-of-war's man.
"Ben Jonson, of all our early dramatic writers, most
frequently alludes to the practice of smoking. In his play
of 'Every Man in his Humour,' first acted in 1598, Captain
Bobadil thus extols in his own peculiar vein the virtues of
tobacco; while Cob, the water carrier, with about equal
truth, relates some startling instances of its pernicious
effects.
"'_Bobadil._ Body o' me, here's the remainder of seven pound
since yesterday was seven-night! 'Tis your right Trinadado!
Did you never take any, Master Stephen?
"'_Stephen._ No, truly, Sir; but I'll learn to take it since
you commend it so.
"'_Bobadil._ Sir, believe me upon my relation,--for what I
tell you the world shall not reprove. I have been in the
Indies where this herb grows, where neither myself, nor a
dozen gentlemen more of my knowledge, have received the
taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of
one and twenty weeks, but the fume of this simple only.
Therefore, it cannot be but 'tis most divine. Further, take
it, in the true kind, so, it makes an antidote, that had you
taken the most deadly poisonous plant in all Italy, it
should expel it and clarify you with as much ease as I
speak. And for your greenwound, your balsamum, and your St.
John's-wort, are all mere gulleries and trash to it,
especially your Trinidado: your Nicotian is good too. I
could say what I know of it for the expulsion of rheums, raw
humours, crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this
kind, but I profess myself no quack-salver: only thus much,
by Hercules; I do hold it, and will affirm it before any
prince in Europe, to be the most sovereign and precious weed
that ever the earth tendered to the use of man.'
_Cob._ "'By gad's me, I mar'l what pleasure or felicity they
have in taking this roguish tobacco! It's good for nothing
but to choke a man and fill him full of smoke and embers.
There were four died out of one house last week with taking
of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight; one of
them, they say, will ne'er 'scape it: he voided a bushel of
soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks! an'
there were no wiser men than I, I'd have it present
whipping, man or woman that should but deal with a
tobacco-pipe; why, it will stifle them all in the end, as
many as use it; it's little better than rats-bane or
rosaker.'"[40]
[Footnote 40: A preparation of arsenic.]
From the first announcement that English navigators had discovered
tobacco in Virginia, until the London and Plymouth companies sailed
for the New World, the deepest interest was taken in the voyagers.
Drayton, the poet, wrote of "The Virginian Voyage," while Chapman and
other dramatists wrote plays in which allusions were made to Virginia.
In the "Mask of Flowers," performed at White Hall upon Twelfth Night,
1613-14, one of the characters challenges another, and asserts that
wine is more worthy than tobacco. The costumes were exceedingly
grotesque and suggestive of the New rather than of the Old World.
Kawosha one of the principal characters rode in, wearing on his head a
cap of red-cloth of gold, from his ears were pendants, a glass chain
was about his neck, his body and legs were covered with olive-colored
stuff, in his hands were a bow and arrows, and the bases of
tobacco--colored stuff cut like tobacco leaves. The play abounds with
allusions to the "Indian weed."
"_Silenus._--Kawosha comes in majestie,
Was never such a God as he;
He's come from a far countrie
To make our nose a chimney.
_Kawosha._--The wine takes the contrary way
To get into the hood;
But good tobacco makes no stay
But seizeth where it should.
More incense hath burned at
Great Kawoshae's foote
Than to Silen and Bacchus, both,
And take in Jove to boote.
_Silenus._--The worthies they were nine tis true,
And lately Arthur's knights I knew;
But now are come up Worthies new,
The roaring boys Kawoshae's crew.
_Kawosha._--Silenus toppes the barrel, but
Tobacco toppes the braine
And makes the vapors fire and soote,
That mon revise againe.
Nothing but fumigation
Doth charm away ill sprites,
Kawosha and his nation
Found out these holy rites."
The writers of this period abound in allusions to tobacco and its use.
The poets and dramatists found in it a fertile field for the display
of their satire, and from 1600 to 1650 stage plays introduced many
characters as either tobacco drinkers or sellers. It had now become
so great a custom and had increased so fast after the importation of
Virginia tobacco that it afforded them no insignificant theme for the
display of their genius.[41] The plays of Jonson, Decker, Rowland,
Heywood, Middleton, Fields, Fletcher, Hutton, Lodge, Sharpham,
Marston, Lilly (court poet to Elizabeth), the Duke of Newcastle and
others are full of allusions to the plant and those who indulged in
its use. Shakespeare,[42] however, does not once allude to its use,
and his silence on this then curious custom has provoked much
conjecture and inquiry. Some affirm that he wrote to please royalty,
but if so why did he not condemn the custom to appease the wrath of a
sapient king. Others say he kept silence because he was the friend of
Raleigh, and though he would have gladly held up the great smoker and
his favorite indulgence, feared to add to the popularity of the custom
by displeasing his royal master. Another class affirm that as 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 contemporary dramatists. Says one:
[Footnote 41: "Never did nature produce a Plant that in
a short Time became so universally used, for it was but
a short while known in Europe, till it was taken almost
everywhere, either chewed; smoked, or snuffed. A pipe of
tobacco is now the general and most frequent companion
of, Mug, Bottle, or Punch-bowl."--_T. Short._]
[Footnote 42: Gifford has also remarked that Shakspeare
is the only one of the dramatic writers of the age of
James who does not condescend to notice tobacco; all the
others abound in allusions to it. In Jonson we find
tobacco in every place--in Cob the waterman's house, and
in the Apollo Club-room, on the stage, and at the
ordinary. The world of London was then divided into two
classes--the tobacco-lovers and the tobacco-haters.]
"How is it that our great dramatist never once makes even
the slightest allusion to smoking? Who can suggest a reason?
Our great poet knew the human heart too well, and kept too
steadily in view, the universal nature of man to be afraid
of painting the external trapping and ephemeral customs of
his own time. Does he not delight to moralize on false hair,
masks, rapiers, pomandens, perfumes, dice, bowls,
fardingales, etc? Did he not sketch for us, with enjoyment
and with satire, too, the fantastic fops, the pompous
stewards, the mischievous pages, the quarrelsome revellers,
the testy gaolers, the rhapsodizing lovers, the sly cheats,
and the ruffling courtiers that filled the streets of
Elizabethan London, persons who could have been found
nowhere else nor in any other age? No one can dispute that
he drew the life that he saw moving around him. He sketched
these creatures because they were before his eyes and were
his enemies or his associates; they live still because their
creator's genius was Promethean, and endowed them with
immortality. Bardolph, Moth, Slender, Abhorson, Don Armado,
Mercutio, etc., are portraits, as everyone knows and feels
who is conversant with the manners of the Elizabethan times
as handed down in old plays.
"If Shakespeare's contemporaries were silent about the then
new fashion of smoking, we should not so much wonder at
Shakespeare's taciturnity. But Decker's and Ben Jonson's
works abound in allusions to tobacco, its uses and abuses.
The humorist and satirist lost no opportunity of deriding
the new fashion and its followers. The tobacco merchant was
an important person in London of James the First's
time--with his Winchester pipes, his maple cutting-blocks,
his juniper-wood charcoal fires, and his silver tongs with
which to hand the hot charcoal to his customers, although he
was shrewdly suspected of adulterating the precious weed
with sack lees and oil. It was his custom to wash the
tobacco in muscadel and grains, and to keep it moist by
wrapping it in greased leather, and oiled rags, or by
burying it in gravel. The Elizabethan pipes were so small
that now when they are dug up in Ireland the poor call them
'fairy pipes' from their tininess. These pipes became known
by the nickname of 'the woodcock's heads.' The apothecaries,
who sold the best tobacco, became masters of the art, and
received pupils, whom they taught to exhale the smoke in
little globes, rings, or the 'Euripus.' 'The slights' these
tricks were called. Ben Jonson facetiously makes these
professors boast of being able to take three whiffs, then to
take horse, and evolve the smoke--one whiff on Hounslow, a
second at Staines, and a third at Bagshot.
"The ordinary gallant, like Mercutio, would smoke while the
dinner was serving up. Those who were rich and foolish
carried with them smoking apparatus of gold or
silver--tobacco-box, snuff-ladle, tongs to take up charcoal,
and priming irons. There seems, from Decker's "Gull's
Horn-Book," to have been smoking clubs, or tobacco
ordinaries as they were called, where the entire talk was of
the best shops for buying Trinidado, the Nicotine, the Cane,
and the Pudding, whose pipe had the best bore, which would
turn blackest, and which would break in the browning. At the
theatres, the rakes and spendthrifts who, crowded the stage
of Shakespeare's time sat on low stools smoking; they sat
with their three sorts of tobacco beside them, and handed
each other lights on the points of their swords, sending out
their pages for more Trinidado if they required it. Many
gallants 'took' their tobacco in the lords room over the
stage, and went out to (Saint) Paul's to spit there
privately. Shabby sponges and lying adventurers, like
Bobadil, bragged of the number of packets of 'the most
divine tobacco' they had smoked in a week, and told enormous
lies of living for weeks in the Indies on the fumes alone.
They affirmed it was an antidote to all poison; that it
expelled rheums, sour humours, and obstructions of all
kinds. Some doctors were of opinion that it would heal
gout[43] and the ague, neutralise the effects of
drunkenness, and remove weariness and hunger. The poor on
the other hand, not disinclined to be envious and detracting
when judging rich men's actions, laughed at men who made
chimneys of their throats, or who sealed up their noses with
snuff.
[Footnote 43: "Some hold it for a singular remedie
against the gowte (gout), to chaw every morning the
leaves of Petum (tobacco), because it voideth great
quantitie of flegme out at the mouth, hindering the same
from falling upon the joints, which is the very cause of
the gowte." _Dr. Richard Surflet_ (1606).]
"Ben Jonson makes that dry, shrewd, water carrier of his,
Cob, rail at the 'roguish tobacco:' he would leave the
stocks for worse men, and make it present whipping for
either man or woman who dealt with a tobacco-pipe. But King
James, in his inane 'Counterblast,' is more violent than
even Cob. He argues that to use this unsavory smoke is to be
guilty of a worse sin than that of drunkenness, and asks how
men, who cannot go a day's journey without sending for hot
coals to kindle their tobacco, can be expected to endure the
privations of war. Smoking, the angry and fuming king
protests, had made our manners as rude as those of the
fish-wives of Dieppe. Smokers, tossing pipes and puffing
smoke over the dinner-table, forgot all cleanliness and
modesty. Men now, he says, cannot welcome a friend but
straight they must be in hand with tobacco. He that refused
a pipe in company was accounted peevish and unsociable.
'Yea,' says the royal coxcomb and pedant, 'the mistress
cannot in a more mannerly kind entertain her servant than by
giving him out of her fair hand a pipe of tobacco.' The
royal reformer (not the most virtuous or cleanly of men)
closes his denunciation with this tremendous broadside of
invective:
'Have you not reason, then' he says, 'to be shamed and to
forbear this filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so
foolishly received, and so grossly mistaken in the right use
thereof? To your abuse thereof sinning against God, harming
yourself both in persons and goods, and taking also thereby
the notes and marks of vanity upon you by the custom
thereof, making yourselves to be wondered at by all, foreign
civil nations and by all strangers that come among you, and
be scorned, and contemned; a custom both fulsome to the eye,
hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the
lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest
resembling the horrible Stigian smelle of the pit that is
bottomless."
[Illustration: Exhaling through the nose.]
The supposed curative virtues of the tobacco plant had much to do with
its use in Europe while the singular mode of exhaling through the
nostrils added to its charms, and doubtless led to far greater
indulgence. Spenser in his Fairy Queen makes one of the characters
include it with other herbs celebrated for medicinal qualities.
"Into the woods thence-forth in haste she went,
To seek for herbes that mote him remedy;
For she of herbes had great intendiment,
Taught of the Nymph which from her infancy,
Had nursed her in true nobility:
There whether it divine Tobacco were,
Or Panachæ, or Polygony,
She found and brought it to her patient deare,
Who all this while lay bleeding out his heart-blood neare."
Lilly also a little later, in his play of The Woman in the Moone
(1597), speaks of it (through one of the characters) as being a
medicinal herb--
"Gather me balme and cooling violets
And of our holy herbe nicotian,
And bring withall pure honey from the hive
To heale the wound of my unhappy hand."
Barclay, in his tract on "The Vertues of Tobacco," recommends its use
as a medicine. The following is one of the modes of use:
"Take of leafe Tobacco as much as, being folded together,
may make a round ball of such bignesse that it may fill the
patient's mouth, and inclyne his face downwards toward the
ground, keeping the mouth open, not mouthing any whit with
his tongue, except now and then to waken the medicament,
there shall flow such a flood of water from his brain and
his stomacke, and from all the parts of his body that it
shall be a wonder. This must he do fasting in the morning,
and if it be for preservation, and the body be very
cacochyme, or full of evil humors, he must take it once a
week, otherwise once a month. He gives the plant the name of
'Nepenthes,' and says of it, that 'it is worthy of a more
loftie name.'" He writes the following verse addressed to:
"THE ABUSERS OF TOBACCO."
"Why do you thus abuse this heavenly plant,
The hope of health, the fuel of our life?
Why do you waste it without fear of want,
Since fine and true tobacco is not ryfe?
Old Enclio won't foul water for to spair,
And stop the bellows not to waste the air."
He also alludes to the quality of tobacco and says: "The finest
Tobacco is that which pearceth quickly the odorat with a sharp
aromaticke smell, and tickleth the tongue with acrimonie, not
unpleasant to the taste, from whence that which draweth most water is
most veituous, whether the substance of it be chewed in the mouth, or
the smoke of it received."
He speaks of the countries in which the plant grows, and prefers the
tobacco grown in the New World as being superior to that grown in the
Old. In his opinion, "only that which is fostered in the Indies, and
brought home by Mariners and Traffiquers, is to be used." But not
alone were Poets and Dramatists inspired to sing in praise or
dispraise of tobacco, Physicians and others helped to swell in
broadsides, pamphlets and chap-books, the loudest praises or the most
bitter denunciation of the weed. Taylor, the water poet, who lost his
occupation as bargeman when the coach came into use, thought that the
devil brought tobacco into England in a coach. One of the first tracts
wholly devoted to tobacco is entitled Nash's "Lenten Stuffe." The work
is dedicated to Humphrey King, a tobacconist, and is full of curious
sayings in regard to the plant. Another work, entitled "Metamorphosis
of Tobacco," and supposed to have been written by Beaumont, made its
appearance about this time. Samuel Rowlands, the dramatist, wrote two
works on tobacco; the first is entitled "Look to it, for I'll Stabbe
Ye," written in 1604; the other volume is a small quarto, bearing this
singular title: "A whole crew of Kind Gossips, all met to be Merry."
This is a satire on the time and manners of the period, and is written
in a coarse style worthy of the author. In 1605 there appeared a
little volume bearing for its title, "Laugh and Lie Down, or the
World's Folly." This work describes the fops and men of fashion of its
time, and shows how popular the custom of tobacco taking had become.
In 1609, in "The Gull's Horne Book," a gallant is described as
follows:
"Before the meate comes smoaking to the board our Gallant
must draw out his tobacco box, the ladle for the cold snuff
into his nostrils, the tongs and the priming iron. All this
artillery may be of gold or silver, if he can reach to the
price of it; it will be a reasonable, useful pawn at all
times when the current of his money falles out to rune low.
And here you must observe to know in what state tobacco is
in town, better than the merchants, and to discourse of the
potecaries where it is to be sold as readily as the potecary
himself."
One of the severest tirades against tobacco appeared in 1612, "The
Curtain Drawer of the World." In speaking of the users of the weed,
and especially noblemen, he says:
"Then noblemen's chimneys used to smoke, and not their
noses; Englishmen without were not Blackamoores within, for
then Tobacco was an Indian, unpickt and unpiped,--now made
the common ivy-bush of luxury, the curtaine of dishonesty,
the proclaimer of vanity, the drunken colourer of Drabby
solacy."
In the "Soule's Solace, or Thirty-and-One Spiritual Emblems," by
Thomas Jenner, occurs the following verses:
"The Indian weed, withered quite,
Greene at noone, cut down at night,
Shows thy decay; all flesh is hay;
Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco.
The Pipe that is so lily-white,
Show thee to be a mortal wight,
And even such, gone with a touch,
Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco.
And when the smoake ascends on high,
Thinke thou beholdst the vanity
Of worldly stuffe, gone with a puffe,
Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco.
And when the Pipe grows foul within,
Thinke on thy soul defiled with sin,
And then the fire it doth require;
Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco.
The ashes that are left behind,
May serve to put thee still in mind,
That unto dust return thou must;
Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco."
Buttes, in a little volume entitled "Dyets Dry Dinner," (1599) says
that
"Tobacco was translated out of India in the seede or roote;
native or sative in our own fruitfullest soils. It cureth
any griefe, dolour, imposture, or obstruction proceeding of
colde or winde, especially in the head or breast. The fume
taken in a pipe is good against Rumes, ache in the head,
stomacke, lungs, breast; also in want of meate, drinke,
sleepe, or rest."
The introduction of tobacco from the colony of Virginia was followed
soon after by a reduction of price that led to more frequent use among
the poorer classes, such as grooms and hangers on at taverns and
ale-houses, who are alluded to in Rich's "Honestie of this Age":
"There is not so base a groome that comes into an ale-house
to call for his pott, but he must have his pipe of tobacco;
for it is a commodity that is nowe as vendible in every
tavern, wine and ale-house, as eyther wine, ale or beare;
and for apothecaerie's shops, grocer's shops, chandler's
shops, they are never without company, that from morning
till night, are still taking of tobacco. What a number are
there besides, that doe keepe houses, set open shoppes, that
have no other trade to live by, but by selling of tobacco. I
have heard it told, that now very lately there hath been a
catalogue of all those new erected houses that have sett up
that trade of selling tobacco in London, and neare about
London; and if a man may believe what is confidently
reported, there are found to be upwards of seven thousand of
houses that doth live by that trade.
[Illustration: Old London Ale-house.]
"If it be true that there be seven thousand shops in and
about London, that doth vend tobacco, as it is credibly
reported that there be over and above that number, it may
well be supposed to be but an ill customed shop, that taketh
not five shillings a day, one day with another throughout
the whole year; or, if one doth take lesse, two other may
take more; but let us make our account, but after two
shillings sixpence a day, for he that taketh lesse than that
would be ill able to pay his rent, or to keepe open his shop
windows; neither would tobacco houses make such a muster as
they do, and that almost in every lane, and in every
by-corner round about London."
"A Tobacco seller is described after this manner by Blount in a
volume "Micro-Cosmographie; Or A Piece of the World discovered; in
Essays and Characters" (1628).
"A tobacco seller is the only man that finds good in it
which others brag of, but doe not, for it is meate, drinke,
and clothes to him. No man opens his ware with greater
seriousness, or challenges your judgment more in the
operation. His Shop is the Randenvous of spitting, where men
dialogue with their noses, and their conversation is smoke.
It is the place only where Spain is commended, and preferred
before England itself.
"He should be well experienced in the World; for he has
daily tryall as men's nostrils, and none is better
acquainted with humour. His is the piecing commonly of some
other trade, which is bawd to his Tobacco, and that to his
wife, which is the flame that follows the smoke."
Early in the Seventeenth Century began the persecution by royal haters
of the plant, others, however, had denounced the weed and its use and
users, but venting nothing more than a tirade of words against it, had
but little effect in breaking up the trade or the custom.[44] James I.
sent forth his famous "Counterblast" and in the strongest manner
condemned its use. A portion of it reads thus:
[Footnote 44: Elizabeth during her reign, published an
edict against its use, assigning as a reason, that her
subjects, by employing the same luxuries as barbarians,
were likely to degenerate into barbarism.
"From the first introduction of the weed, the votaries
of the pipe have enjoyed all the blessings of
persecution. Kings have punished, priests have
anathematized, satirists satirized and women scolded;
but still the weed, with its divers shapes and different
names, reigns supreme among narcotics in every region of
the globe."--_Emerson's Magazine._]
"Surely smoke becomes a kitchen fane better than a dining
chamber: and yet it makes a kitchen oftentimes in the inward
parts of men, soyling and injecting with an unctuous oyly
kind of roote as hath been found in some great tobacco
takers, that after death were opened. A custom loathsome to
the eye, harmful to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and
the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the
horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless."[45]
[Footnote 45: Another writer in the same censorious
manner says of the use of tobacco, "Smoking is the
jovial repast of Cannibals or Man-eaters, and the grand
entertainment of idolatrous Pagan Festivals. Masters
will not permit the use of it to their servants or
slaves and such as use it can hardly find masters or
buyers."]
Quaint old Burton in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," recognizes the
virtues of the plant while he anathematizes its abuse. He says:--
"Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes
far beyond all their panacetas, potable gold, and
philosophers' stones, a soveraign remedy to all diseases. A
good vomit, I confesse, a vertuous herb, if it be well
qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used; but, as
it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers
do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of
goods, lands, health, hellish, divelish and damned tobacco,
the ruine and overthrow of body and soul."
The duty on importation had been only twopence per pound, a moderate
sum in view of the prices realized by the sale of it.
The King now increased it to the enormous sum of two shilling and ten
pence. James termed the custom of using tobacco an "evil vanitie"
impairing "the health of a great number of people their bodies
weakened and made unfit for labor, and the estates of many mean
persons so decayed and consumed, as they are thereby driven to
unthriftie shifts only to maintain their gluttonous exercise
thereof."[46] Brodigan says of the "Counterblast:"
[Footnote 46: "King James' violent prejudices against
all use of tobacco arose from his aversion to Sir Walter
Raleigh, its first importer into England whom he
intended a sacrifice to the gratification of the King of
Spain."]
"However absurd his reasoning may appear, it unfortunately
happened that he possessed the power to reduce his aversion
to practice, and he may be considered as the author of that
unwarrantable persecution of the tobacco plant, which under
varying circumstances, has been injudiciously continued to
the present time."
Other royal haters of the plant issued the most strenous laws[47] and
affixed penalties of the severest kind, of these may be mentioned the
King of Persia, Amuroth IV. of Turkey, the Emperor Jehan-Gee and Popes
Urban VIII. and Innocent XII., the last of whom showed his dislike to
many other customs beside that of tobacco taking.
[Footnote 47: The Empress Elizabeth was less severe. She
decreed that the snuff-boxes of those who made use of
them in church should be confiscated to the use of the
beadle.]
One of the edicts which he issued was against the taking of snuff in
St. Peters, at Rome; this was in 1690; it was, however, revoked by
Pope Benedict XIV., who himself had acquired the indulgence.
[Illustration: Punishment for snuff-taking.]
Early in the Seventeenth Century tobacco found its way to
Constantinople. To punish the habit, a Turk was seized and a pipe
transfixed through his nose.
The death of King James, followed by its occupancy of the throne by
his son Charles I., did not lessen the persecution against
tobacco.[48] In 1625, the year of his accession, he issued a
proclamation against all tobaccos excepting only the growth of
Virginia and Somerites. Charles II. also prohibited the cultivation of
tobacco in England and Ireland, attaching a penalty of 10£ per rood.
Fairholt, in alluding to the Stuarts and Cromwell as persecutors of
tobacco, says:
[Footnote 48: Tobacco has been able to survive such
attacks as these--nay, has raised up a host of defenders
as well as opponents. The Polish Jesuits published a
work entitled "Anti-Misocapnus," in answer to King
James. In 1628, Raphael Thorius wrote a poem "Hymnus
Tobaci." A host of names appear in the field: Lesus,
Braum and Simon Pauli, Portal, Pia, Vauquelin, Gardanne,
Posselt, Reimann, and De Morveau.]
"Cromwell disliked the plant, and ordered his troops to
trample down the crop wherever found."
It is an historical fact that both James I. and the two Charleses as
well as Cromwell had the strongest dislike against the Indian weed.
With such powerful foes it seems hardly possible that the custom
should have increased to such an extent that when William ascended the
throne the custom was said to be almost universal.[49] "Pipes grew
larger and ruled by a Dutchman, all England smoked in peace." From
this time forward the varieties used served only to increase the
demand for the tobacco of the colonies, and as its culture became
better understood the leaf grew in favor, until the demand for it was
greater than the production.
[Footnote 49: Says an enthusiastic writer on tobacco,
"If judged by the vicissitudes through which it has
traveled, it must indeed be acknowledged a hero among
plants; and if human pity, respect, or love should be
given it for 'the dangers it has passed,' the
inspiration of Desdemonia's love for Othello, then might
its most eloquent opponent be dumb, or yield it no
inconsiderable need of homage."]
During the reign of Anne, the custom of smoking appears to have
attained its greatest height in England; the consumption of tobacco
was then proportionally greater, considering the population, than it
is at the present time. Spooner, in his "Looking-Glass for Smokers,"
1703, says of the custom:
"The sin of the kingdom in the intemperate use of tobacco,
swelleth and increaseth so daily, that I can compare it to
nothing but the waters of Noah, that swell'd fifteen cubits
above the highest mountains. So that if this practice shall
continue to increase as it doth, in an age or two it will be
as hard to find a family free, as it was so long time since
one that commonly took it."
When tobacco was first introduced into England its sale was confined
to apothecaries, but afterwards it was dealt in by tobacconists, who
sold other goods besides tobacco.
About the middle of the Seventeenth Century the culture of tobacco
commenced in England; it continued, however, only for a short time,
for the rump parliament in 1652 prohibited the planting of it, and two
years later Cromwell and his council appointed commissioners for
strictly putting this act in execution: and in 1660 it was legally
enacted, that from the first of January, 1660-1, no person whatever
should sow or plant any tobacco in England, under certain penalties.
In England drinking or smoking tobacco seems to have met with more
success (as a mode of use) rather than chewing (now so popular). It
was principally confined to the lower classes, and was common among
soldiers and sailors. When used by gentlemen it was common to carry a
silver basin to spit in.
[Illustration: Silver spittoons.]
The habit of smoking or using tobacco in any form was then more
constant than now, and its use was common in almost all places of
public gathering. It was the custom to smoke in theatres; stools being
provided for those who paid for their use and the privilege of smoking
on the stage. Tobacco was also sold at some of the play-houses, and
proved a source of profit, doubtless, beyond even the representation
of the plays. We should infer also from some of the early stage plays,
that the "players" used the weed even when acting their parts.
Rowlands gives the following poem on tobacco in his "Knave of Clubs,"
1611:--
"Who durst dispraise tobacco whilst the smoke is in my nose,
Or say, but fah! my pipe doth smell, I would I knew but those
Durst offer such indignity to that which I prefer.
For all the brood of blackamoors will swear I do not err,
In taking this same worthy whif with valiant cavalier,
But that will make his nostrils smoke, at cupps of wine or beer.
When as my purse can not afford my stomach flesh or fish,
I sop with smoke, and feed as well and fat as one can wish.
Come into any company, though not a cross you have,
Yet offer them tobacco, and their liquor you shall have.
They say old hospitalitie kept chimnies smoking still;
Now what your chimnies want of that, our smoking noses will.
Much vituals serves for gluttony, to fatten men like swine,
But he's a frugal man indeed that with a leaf can dine,
And needs no napkins for his hands, his fingers' ends to wipe,
But keeps his kitchen in a box, and roast meat in a pipe.
This is the way to help down years, a meal a day's enough:
Take out tobacco for the rest, by pipe, or else by snuff,
And you shall find it physical; a corpulent, fat man,
Within a year shall shrink so small that one his guts shall span.
It's full of physic's rare effects, it worketh sundry ways,
The leaf green, dried, steept, burnt to dust, have each their several praise,
It makes some sober that are drunk, some drunk of sober sense.
And all the moisture hurts the brain, it fetches smoking thence.
All the four elements unite when you tobacco take.
For earth and water, air and fire, do a conjunction make.
The pipe is earth, the fire's therein, the air the breathing smoke;
Good liquor must be present too, for fear I chance to choke.
Here, gentlemen, a health to all, 'Tis passing good and strong.
I would speak more, but for the pipe I cannot stay so long."
In 1602 appeared a sweeping tirade entitled, "Work for Chimney
Sweepers, or a Warning against Tobacconists." It abounds with threats
against all who indulge in tobacco. The most singular work, however,
appeared in 1616, bearing the following singular title: "The Smoking
Age, or the Man in the Mist; with the Life and Death of Tobacco.
Dedicated to Captain Whiffe, Captain Pipe, and Captain Snuffe." A
frontispiece is given representing a tobacconist's shop with shelves,
counters, pipes and tobacco; a carved figure of a negro stands upon
the counter, which shows how soon such figures were used by dealers in
pipes and tobacco. The title-page contains the following epigram:
"This some affirme, yet yield I not to that,
'Twill make a fat man lean, a lean man fat;
But this I'm sure (howse'ere it be they meane)
That many whiffes will make a fat man lean."
[Illustration: The Negro Image.]
The following effusion resembles many of the verses of the day on the
fruitful subject:
"Tobacco's an outlandish weed,
Doth in the land strange wonders breed,
It taints the breath, the blood it dries,
It burns the head, it blinds the eyes;
It dries the lungs, scourgeth the lights,
It numbs the soul, it dulls the sprites;
It brings a man into a maze,
And makes him sit for other's gaze;
It makes a man, it mars a purse,
A lean one fat, a fat one worse;
A sound man sick, a sick man sound,
A bound man loose, a loose man bound;
A white man black, a black man white,
A night a day, a day a night;
The wise a fool, the foolish wise,
A sober man in drunkard's guise;
A drunkard with a drought or twain,
A sober man it makes again;
A full man empty, and an empty full,
A gentleman a foolish gull;
It turns the brain like cat in pan,
And makes a Jack a gentleman."
The well-known song of "Tobacco is an Indian Weed," was written most
probably the last half of the Seventeenth Century, Fairholt gives the
best copy we have seen of it. It is taken from the first volume of
"Pills to Purge Melancholy," and reads thus:
"Tobacco's but an Indian weed,
Grows green at morn, cut down at eve,
It shows our decay, we are but clay;
Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
"The pipe, that is so lily white,
Wherein so many take delight,
Is broke with a touch--man's life is such;
Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
"The pipe, that is so foul within,
Shews how man's soul is stained with sin,
And then the fire it doth require;
Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
"The ashes that are left behind
Do serve to put us all in mind
That unto dust return we must;
Think of this when you smoke tobacco.
"The smoke, that does so high ascend,
Shews us man's life must have an end,
The Vapor's gone--man's life is done;
Think of this when you smoke tobacco."
One of the strongest objections against the use of the "Indian
novelty" was its ruinous cost at this period. During the reign of
James The First and Charles The Second, Spanish tobacco sold at from
ten to eighteen shillings per pound while Virginia tobacco sold for a
time for three shillings. In no age and by no race excepting perhaps
the Indians was the habit so universal or carried to such a length as
in the Seventeenth Century--its supposed virtues as a medicine induced
many to inhale the smoke constantly. This was one reason why tobacco
was condemned by so many of the writers and playwrights of the day yet
many of them used the weed in some form from Ben Johnson to Cibber the
one fond of his pipe the other of his snuff.
In 1639 Venner published a volume entitled "A Treatise" concerning the
taking of the fume of tobacco. His advice is "to take it moderately
and at fixed times." Many of the clergy were devoted adherents of the
pipe. Lilly says of its use among them:
"In this year Bredon vicar of Thornton a profound divine,
but absolutely the most polite person for nativities in that
age, strictly adhering to Ptolemy, which he well understood;
he had a hand in composing Sir Christopher Heydon's defence
of judicial astrology, being that time his chaplain; he was
so given over to tobacco and drink, that when he had no
tobacco, he would cut the bell-ropes and smoke them."