STRAY LEAVES FROM THE WEED 165 



When as my purse can not afford my stomach flesh or fish, 

 I sup with smoke, and feel as well and fat as one can wish. 



* ^< :!: -I: * ■-;: * 



Much victuals serve for gluttony, to fatten men like swine, 

 But he's a frugal man indeed that with a leaf can dine, 

 And needs no napkins for his hands his fingers' ends to wipe, 

 But keeps his kitchen in a box, and roast meat in a pipe. 

 This is the way to help down years, a meal a day's enough ; 

 Take out tobacco for the rest by pipe, or else in snuff. 

 And you shall find it physical ; a corpulent, fat man, 

 Within a year shall shrink so small that round his waist you'll 



span. 

 It's full of physic's rare effects, it worketh sundry ways : 

 The leaf green, dried, steep't, burnt to dust, have each their 



several praise. 



While Englishmen smoked, and laughed at their King's 

 wondrous ways, or growled at his tenacious grip upon their 

 pockets. Eastern potentates were treating their subjects, as 

 only despots can, for daring to indulge in the Prankish novelty. 

 In Persia, where but recently jealous strife raged for sole 

 possession of the tobacco industry. Abbas I., of dread 

 memory, cut off the lips of those who smoked, and the 

 noses of any who ventured to snuff. On one occasion he 

 threw an unfortunate man, whom he discovered selling 

 tobacco, into a fire along with his goods. Yet, by-and-by, 

 this demon of cruelty himself was enthralled by Nicotiana's 

 charms, and became one of her most fervent devotees. 

 The Turks, under Amurath IV., were similarly punished 

 for infringing his edict against smoking. Sir Edwin 

 Sandys, of Pontefract, in his travels in 16 10, bears testimony 

 to similar acts of cruelty by Mahomet IV. During his stay 

 in Constantinople he witnessed the punishment of a Turk 

 who had been caught solacing the burden of life with the 

 vapour of his new-found joy. Short-lived was the sturdy 



