444 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2«a S. K« 75., June 6. '67. 



to the gratification of the King of Spain " [hy betraying 

 him]. — Disc, p. 253. 



And how sublime the death of this primitive 

 smoker ! — 



« He was very cheerful the morning he died, ate his 

 breakfast, and took tobacco, and made no more of death 

 than if he had been to take a journey ; and he left a great 

 impression on the minds of those that beheld him." — 



After its introduction, in Portugal, Spain, Italy, 

 and elsewhere, its use was entirely for medical 

 purposes — applied chiefly in the green state ; — 

 or merely for the purpose of ornament to the 

 garden, as appears from Monardes, and the trea- 

 tise by Dr. Everhard, before mentioned. Nay, 

 even in 1565, Gesner, the Pliny of Germany, states 

 that he only then learnt for the first time, from 

 Thevet, the Frenchman, that tobacco was used for 

 smoking in America (^Epist. Med.). It was not 

 before 1580 that smoking of tobacco became a 

 fashion — and then " a foppery," stigmatised by 

 Ben Jonson and others, whose works -are too 

 easy of access to need quotation in " N. & Q." 



The English evidently took the lead in the adop- 

 tion of the practice, under the auspices of Raleigh. 

 The Spaniards and Portuguese were compara- 

 tively late In courting the weed ; indeed Oviedo 

 states that from the first they were averse to It. 

 In France it was first used in the shape of snuff, 

 to cure Charles IX. of some ophthalmic disease ; 

 but It was not before the reign of Louis XIII. 

 that tobacco as a luxury became In vogue — and 

 then chiefly in the shape of snuflT, and confined to 

 the " petit peuple." (Volt. Diet. Phil.) Smoking 

 was introduced much later In France ; and at 

 first it was through long straws, terminated by a 

 little chafing-dish of silver. It is easy to show 

 that long after the Introduction of the plant, the 

 chief supplies were obtained from Virginia — as 

 at the present time — for the consumption of 

 Europe and Asia. 



Lobel, In his Hort. Kewensis, states that it was 

 grown in England in 1570 ; and this Is probable, 

 tor I have seen an English treatise on the subject 

 published in 1565 ; but there Is no evidence that 

 it was used for any purpose but ornament or 

 medicine. 



By all accounts the introduction of the practice 

 of smoking was not only attended with vast ex- 

 pense, literally costing its weight in silver (Alfred 

 Crowquill says it Is worth its weight in gold), but 

 was accounted a " foppery " which the mob could 

 not excuse. Smokers were " bull-ragged " with 

 the following choice epithets : " tippling To- 

 bacconist," " swaggering swill-smoke," " sodden- 

 headed Asse," " fantasticall fool," " a proper tall 

 strippling to play at Poope-Noddie" i.e. a losing 

 game, one who can convert " a shilling into ten 

 pence." {Tobacco Tortured, a.b. 1616.) The To- 

 bacco Battered, by Joshua Sylvester, was pub- 



lished about two years before. I have a copy of 

 the Editio princeps : it abounds with similar 

 " abuse " of the weed. 



All this shows that the smoking of tobacco 

 began with the wealthy, and was ridiculed by the 

 mob ; and was at length adopted by the mob — 

 the usual process in all fashions. Such being the 

 case, what are we to think of the following tradi' 

 Hon In the county of Herefordshire, as given by 

 Sir John Hawkins, in his notes to The Complete 

 Angler " ? 



" In that county to signify the last or concluding pipe 

 that any one means to smoke at a sitting, they use the 

 term a Kemble-pipe, alluding to a man of the name of 

 Kemble, who, in the cruel persecution under the merciless 

 bigot Queen Mary, being condemned for heresy to the 

 stake, amidst a crowd of weeping friends, with the tran- 

 quillity and fortitude of a primitive martyr, smoked a pipe 

 of tobacco." — P. 254. 



Now, whence could this admirable martyr have 

 got tobacco In England, before the plant was even 

 seen In Portugal* — and the very existence of 

 which was only known to the learned readers of 

 Cohimbus, the Monk Pane, or Oviedo ? The 

 plant was Introduced Into Portugal In 1559 — the 

 persecution of Queen Mary was from 1555 to 

 1558 — and It could not have been even British- 

 grown tobacco. What solution can we find for 

 this problem ? Must it be in the words of Paley, 

 in the face of other assertions : " Solution ? Sir, 

 — the solution is that it's a He " — of Tradition. 

 Of course, if true, It upsets all our dates as to the 

 introduction and " early mention " of tobacco. I 

 am told that not long ago a tobacco-pipe was 

 found Imbedded In a brick which was taken from 

 a house built in the time of our Henry VIII. ; and 

 Ewlia Eflendi, In his curious Travels, tells us that 

 in cutting through the wall of a Grecian building 

 at Constantinople, built before the birth of Mo- 

 hammed, a tobacco-pipe was found between the 

 stones — nay more, It still retained the smell of 

 the smoke ! And in the Effendi's opinion it incon- 

 testably proved the antiquity of the practice! 

 These assertions cannot be reconciled with the 

 known facts of the subject ; and I will not trouble 

 my readers with the vain conjectures put forth 

 before ascertaining the facts themselves. Revert- 

 ing, however, to our smoking martyr (in whom 

 I feel much interest), did our ancestors, like the 

 Indians and other ancient nations, delight in the 

 Inspiration of fume or smoke of some kind or 

 another, according to their capabilities ? Indeed, 

 Hollinshed expressly says, — 



" For as the smoke [of the wood-flre, without a chim- 

 ney] in those days, was supposed to be a sufficient harden- 

 ing for the timber of the house, so it was reputed a fa?' 

 better medicine to keep the good man and his family from the 



[* This anachronism is elucidated in our 1«* S. iii. 502. 

 Kemble was implicated in. Titus Oates's plot, and was 

 hanged, not burnt.] 



