1 8 ST NICOTINE 



very big pinch indeed. An explosion, or rather a succes- 

 sion of explosions followed, and I thought my head was 

 blown off. My first experience of snuff was my first tragedy.' 

 Whereupon there fell upon the ear strange sounds as of 

 distant revelry re-echoed through ancient halls untenanted, 

 and Olympus rocked under a burst of Jovian laughter. 



Charles Lamb, beaming with smiles, is ready to Lamb-pun 

 (lampoon) anybody or everybody, if he will but wa-wa-wait 

 a bit. And Leigh Hunt, aside to Wordsworth, whispers, 

 ' Lamb will crack a jest in the teeth of a ghost, and then 

 melt into thin air at the awful thought.' While Coleridge, 

 of moody brow, brightens under the genial influence of 

 old comrades, and casting reflective glances around 

 him, lives again in the memory of those delightful evenings 

 spent with them, their pipes aglow, in the old hostel where 

 genial Elia and a host of genius loved to foregather. 



Sincere, affectionate, loving Charles Lamb, whose child- 

 like heart, so easily touched with the sufferings of others, 

 was full of chivalrous devotion to the sufferer. He turns to 

 Wordsworth and explains his attitude towards the weed. 

 ' Tobacco was for years my evening comfort and my 

 morning curse. For two years I had it in my head to write 

 a poem on the charmer, but she stood in her own light by 

 giving me headaches that prevented me singing her praises.' 



' But, my worthy Lamb, you know that headaches come 

 not so much of smoking as of imbibing too freely of that 

 cheery October you like so well ? And what strong coarse 

 stuff you would smoke to be sure ! Do you remember that 

 even Dr. Parr was amazed at your prodigious powers, and 

 asked how you had acquired the habit ? ' 



'Ah, yes, I remember, I told him I had acquired it,' 

 (and here a sparkle of humour plays across his face) ' by 

 toiling after it, as some men toil after virtue.' 



