WORKS OF ART. 



251 



FANCY SNUFF-BOXES. 



plainer and decidedly uglier. Hushing into an opposite 

 extreme, the most outrageous receptacles for the precious 

 dust were devised. Boxes in the 

 shape of bibles, boots, shoes, toads, 

 and coffins outraged public taste. 

 The strangest materials were used 

 in their construction ; the public 

 taste leaning towards relics possess- 

 ing historical interest. Thus the 

 mulberry tree planted by Shake- 

 speare, the hull of the Koyal 

 George, in which ' brave Kempen- 

 felt went down, with twice four 

 hundred men,' and the deck of the 

 Victory, on which Nelson died < for 

 England, home, and beauty,' have 

 alone been supposed to supply 

 material for snuff-boxes to an ex- 

 tent which, if known, must con- 

 siderably weaken the faith of their 

 possessors in their genuineness. 



" Nor has snuff itself been less 

 liable to the rule of fashion than the boxes that held it. We 

 will give a few familiar instances. In the naval engagement 

 of Viga, in 1703, when a large Spanish fleet was taken or 

 destroyed, a great quantity of musty snuff was made prize 

 of, and patriotism ran high enough to cause the ' town' for 

 some length of time to resist all that was not manufactured 

 to imitate the flavor from which it took its well-known name 

 of ' musty.' Nearer to our own time, a large tobacco ware- 

 house having been destroyed by fire, in Dublin, a poor man 

 purchased some of the scorched or damaged stock, and man- 

 ufacturing it into coarse snuff, sold it to the poorer class of 

 snuff-takers. Forthwith capricious fashion adopted it, endow- 

 ing it with fabulous qualities, and Lundy Foot's Irish Black- 

 guard (so it was termed) filled the most fashionable boxes. 



" Again, during the Peninsular campaigns, in which the 

 light division of the British army bore so memorable a part, 

 the mixture used by and called after its gallant leader, Gen- 

 eral Sir. Amos Norcott, had a more extensive sale than any* 

 other. When Napoleon was at Elba, and folks began to tire 

 of legitimacy, as they soon did, it became fashionable to use 

 snuff scented with the spirit of violet, and significantly to 

 allude to the perfume. Garrick, when he was manager of 



