102 TOBACCO SELLltttf. 



Blount in a volume "Micro-Cosrnographie; Or A Piece of 

 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 serious- 

 ness, 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 Eng- 

 land itself. 



" He should be well experienced in the "World ; for he has 

 daily try all 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.* James I. sent forth 

 his famous " Counterblast " and in the strongest manner con- 

 demned its use. A portion of it reads thus : 



" 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 deatli 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." f 



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 



Elizabeth during her roic-n. published nn edict agnlnst Us use, assigning as a reason, 

 thnt li- r subjects, by employing the same luxuries as barbarians, were lik'dy to degenerate 

 into barbarism. 



" From the first introduction of the weed, the votnr'es of the pipe have enjoyed all the 

 blessings of pi-rneeution. Kings lnive punished, priests have iinathcmntl/rd, satirists 

 satirized and women scolded ; but still the weed, with ItH divers phnpes and different names, 

 reigns supreme nmong narcotics in every region of the globe.'' Emernon'x Maguzlut. 



t Another writer in the pnme ccnfoiioun manner stiyn of the QSOOf tobacco. "Smoking 

 is the Jovial repast, of Cannibals or Man-eaters, mid the grand entertainment of idolatrous 

 Pagan Festivals. Mast ern will not permit the use of It to their servants or slaves and such 

 as use it cau hardly find masters or buyers." 



