STRAY LEAVES FROM THE WEED 151 



Among the many anecdotes told of Raleigh's practices with 

 his pipe may be mentioned that of his outwitting the Queen 

 in a wager she laid with the gallant knight respecting the 

 weight of the smoke which exhaled from a pipeful of tobacco. 

 ' I can assure your Majesty,' said Raleigh, ' that I have so 

 well experienced the nature of it that I can exactly tell even 

 the weight of the smoke in any quantity I consume.' ' I 

 doubt it much, Sir Walter,' replied Elizabeth, thinking only 

 how impossible it must be to catch the smoke and put it in 

 a balance, ' and will wager you twenty angels that you do 

 not solve my doubt.' Whereupon Raleigh drew forth a 

 quantity of the weed, placed it in finely adjusted scales, and 

 having ascertained its weight, commenced to smoke it, care- 

 fully preserving the ashes. These at the finish he weighed 

 with great exactness. Then would it dawn upon her Majesty 

 how the wager was to end. ' Your Majesty,' said Raleigh, 

 ' cannot deny that the difference hath evaporated in smoke.' 

 ' Truly, I cannot,' was her reply. Then, turning to those 

 around her, who were eying with amusement this curious play 

 on the pipe, she continued, ' Many labourers in the fire have 

 I heard of (alluding to alchemists) who turned their gold into 

 smoke, but Sir Walter is the first who has turned smoke into 

 gold.' 



But the Indian weed had a hard fight to hold its ground 

 in Europe and Asia in face of the most resolute opposition 

 from potentates, statesmen, and priests. In England 



The gentleman called King James 



In quilted doublet and great trunk breeches, 



Who held in abhorrence tobacco and witches,! 



signalised himself and his reign by profound learning and 

 ponderous invective hurled against the innocent plant, 



f " The Witches ' Frolic," Ingoldsby Legends, 



