SMOKING IN JAPAN. 173 



" Let us sit down to a good Japanese dinner down on the 

 floor. Food on the floor. Fire and cigars or pipes on the 

 floor. Sit on your heels, waiting. Enter first course Fish- 

 ekin soup. Smoke. Third Fish, cake and bean-cheese. 

 Smoke. Fourth Eow fish and horse-radish. Smoke. 

 Fifth Broiled fish. Smoke again, Sixth Custard soup. 



Smoke. Seventh Chicken stew, 

 turnips and onions. Smoke a little. 

 Eighth Cuttle-fish, wafer cakes, 

 Nipon tea. Here, if tired you 

 can stop at the end of about two- 

 hours' ankle-ache. All is cleanly, 

 well spiced with talk, and served 

 with the utmost politeness. Sip- 

 ping tea may be substituted for the 

 JAPANESE PIPES. infinitesimal whiffs of polite smok- 



ing. A grand dinner is much more 



elaborate ; at least, so far as the variety of smokes is con- 

 cerned. After dinner, rest and smoke." 



An English writer could very appropriately call this a 

 cloud of smoke as he has another scene herein described. 

 " 'Tis all smoke, possibly, but what cannot we discern, 

 through a cloud of smoke ? Objects dim, but 



1 Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks 

 In Vallambrosa.' 



Be the medium of the smoke an honest ' churchwarden,' a 

 short clay, or a costly meerschaum ; does the smoke emanate 

 from a refined Havana, a neat Manilla, or a dainty cigarette, 

 such as we are at this moment enjoying as a sequel to a mod- 

 est breakfast, 'tis all smoke." 



We have thus given a somewhat lengthy description of the 

 custom and implements used in smoking, from the first dis- 

 covery of the plant until now, and turn to other implements 

 used in connection with the pipe. We, however, give the 

 following from Cop's " Tobacco Plant," descriptive of the 

 part played by tobacco on the stage two centuries ago : 



"The ' Return from Parnassus' was published anony- 

 mously, and the copy I have used is dateless. It was ' publicly 

 acted by the students of St. John's College in Cambridge.' 

 In Act I., Scene 2d, characters are given of Spenser, Ben 

 Jonson, Marlow, I) ray ton, Marston and Shakespeare, 

 together with some other of the known poets and dramatists 



