118 ANECDOTES. 



And drinking that againe, ' Fie,' says the other : < what a 

 stinke it makes. I am almost poysoned.' ' If it offend, 5 

 quoth Tarlton, ' let's every one take a little of the smell, and 

 so the savor will quickly go ;' but tobacco whiffes made them 

 leave him to pay all." 



Rich gives the following account of a similar scene : 



"I remember a pretty jest of tobacco which was this : A 

 certain Welchman coming newly to London, and beholding 

 one to take tobacco, never seeing the like before, and not 

 knowing the manner of it, but perceiving him vent smoke 

 so fast, and supposing his inward parts to be on fire, cried 

 out, ' O Jhesu, Jhesu man, for the passion of Cod hold, for 

 by Cod's splud ty snowt's on fire,' and having a bowle of 

 beere in his hand, threw it at" the other's face, to quench his 

 smoking nose." 



The following anecdote is equally ludicrous. Before 

 tobacco was much known in Germany, some soldiers belong- 

 ing to a cavalry regiment were quartered in a German village- 

 One of them, a trumpeter, happened to be a negro. A 

 peasant, who had never seen a black man before, and who 

 knew nothing about tobacco, watched, though at a safe dis- 

 tance, the trumpeter, while the latter groomed and fed his 

 horse. As soon as this business was dispatched, the negro 

 filled his pipe and began to smoke it. Great had been the 

 peasant's bewilderment before; great was his terror now. 

 The terror reached an intolerable point when the negro took 

 the pipe from his mouth, offered it to the peasant, and asked 

 him, in the best language he could command, to take a whiff. 

 "No, no!" cried the peasant, in exceeding alarm; "no, no! 

 Mr. Devil ; I do not wish to eat fire." 



Henry Fielding, in " The Grub Street Opera " written 

 about a century ago, has the following verses on Tobacco : 



" Let the learned talk ol books, 



The glutton of cooks, 

 The lover of Celia's soft smack O ! 



No mortal can boast 



So noble a toast, 

 As a pipe of accepted tobacco. 



" Let the soldier for fame, 



And a general's name, 

 In battle get many a thwack O ! 



