228 "A PINCH OF SNUFF." 



and oft and many a time have I called up by it the courteous 

 spirit of its owner, to regulate my own in the jostlings of 

 the world ; they had found full employment for his, as I 

 learnt from his story, till about the forty-fifth year of his 

 age, when upon some military services ill-requited, and meet- 

 ing at the same time with a disappointment in the tenderest 

 of passions, he abandoned the sword and the sex together, 

 and took sanctuary, not so much in his convent as in himself. 

 I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that in 

 my last return through Calais, upon inquiring after Father 

 Lorenzo, I heard he had been dead near three months, and 

 was buried, not in his convent, but according to his desire, 

 in a little cemetery belonging to it about two leagues off. I 

 had a strong desire to see where they had laid him, when, 

 upon pulling out his little horn box, as I sat by his grave, 

 and plucking a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no 

 business to grow there, they all struck together so forcibly 

 upon my affections that I burst into a flood of tears but I 

 am as weak as a woman ; I beg the world not to smile, but 

 pity me.".. 



Many pleasing effusions have been written promoted doubt- 

 less by a sneeze among which the following on " A pinch of 

 Snuff " from " The Sportsman Magazine," exhibits the cus- 

 tom and the benefits ascribed to its indulgence. 



" With mind or body sore distrest, 

 Or with repeated cares opprest, 

 What sets the aching heart at rest ? 

 A pinch of snuff! 



" Or should some sharp and gnawing pain 

 Creep round the noddle of the brain, 

 What puts all things to rights again ? 

 A pinch of snuff ! 



" When speech and tongue together fail, 

 What helps old ladies in their tale, 

 And adds fresh canvass to their sail ? 

 A pinch of snuff! 



" Or when some drowsy parson prays, 

 And still more drowsy people gaze, 

 What opes their eyelids with amaze ? 

 A pinch of snuff! 



