TOBACCO LEAVES 



could never have known a " heart to 

 heart " smoke. But let that pass. What 

 of the poets and philosophers who have 

 puffed the praises of the plant divine? 

 Long life to their ashes past, present, 

 and future. 



In looking over the literature of smok- 

 ing, we can go back almost to the day of 

 its introduction as a civilized article of 

 consumption. Of course, tobacco had its 

 ill wishers and enemies ; but of them we 

 have no account to settle. They are all 

 below the clouds, so to speak. 



Perhaps the first literary effusion, ac- 

 cording to the Overland Monthly, wholly 

 devoted to the " Nicotian weed " is Nash's 

 " Lenten Snuffe," an octavo tract, of date 

 anterior to A. D. 1600. It is dedicated to 

 Humphrey King, a London tobacconist 

 and poor pamphleteer. Nash was an in- 

 veterate Bohemian, and, as might be ex- 

 pected, was extravagant in his praise of 



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