TOBACCO. , 177 
The performance of. the latter is entitled. a 
“Hymn to Tobacco,” and is very lavish in ascrip- 
tions to this plant, which he styles the “gift of 
heaven and the ornament of earth.’ So warm, 
were the prejudices of its advocates, that it ob- 
tained the reputation of a general panacea, and 
the catalogue of diseases which it was announced 
to cure, amounted almost to a complete nosology. 
But the opinions of its adversaries.were not 
less extravagant upon the other extreme. It is 
remarkable that in the days of its first general in- 
troduction, no man spoke about it with coolness 
or indifference, but every one warmly espoused ‘its 
censure or its praise... Camden, in his. life of 
Queen Elizabeth, says; that.men used. Tobaceo 
every where, some for wantonness and some for 
health’s sake; and that “with insatiable desire 
and greediness, they sucked the, stinking smoke 
thereof through an earthen pipe, which, they 
presently blew out again at their nostrils ;—so 
that Knglishmen’s bodies were so delighted) with 
this plant, that they seemed as it were: eb 
ated into barbarians.” | : 
Dr. Venner in a work sities Via recta él 
nitam longam, published at London in 1638, gives 
a brief summary of the injuries done by Tobacco. 
“It drieth the brain, dimmeth the sight, vitiateth 
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