TOBACCO-PLANT. 427 



must be owned, that on its first introduction, our ancestors 

 carried its use to an enormous excess, smoking even in 

 the churches, which made Pope Urban VIII., in 1624, 

 publish a decree of excommunication against those who 

 used such an unseemly practice ; and Innocent XII., in 

 1690, solemnly excommunicated all those who should take 

 snuff or tobacco in St. Peter's church at Rome. 



It has been observed, that Shakspeare was the only 

 dramatic poet of that age who did not write either for or 

 against Tobacco. It seems to have been considered as 

 necessary to the completion of a perfect, beau to use this 

 herb. Thus, Ford, speaking of a gay young spendthrift, 

 says, he is " one that blew his patrimony away in feathers 

 and tobacco." 



Ben Jon son ridicules the extravagant notions people had 

 of this plant, and their excessive use of it, in Every Man 

 in his Humour. Bobadil, after making a long speech, in 

 which he describes it as a cure for all diseases, an antidote 

 against all poisons, and almost as superseding the necessity 

 of food, concludes with these words : 



" By Hercules, I do hold it, and will affirm it before any 

 prince in Europe, to be the most sovereign and precious 

 weed that ever the earth tendered to the use of man." 



Mr. Weber, in his edition of the works of Beaumont and 

 Fletcher, quotes some curious lines from the Bannatyne 

 MS., in which the author would make out the smoking of 

 Tobacco to be an excellent moral lesson. 



It is strange to observe how important an article this herb 

 is with the lower orders in various parts of the world : with 

 negroes, in particular. Burchell was often almost afraid to 

 show himself, he was so pestered for it. He mentions this 

 frequently in his Travels in Southern Africa, as a constant 

 torment. 



Captain Stedman speaks of the same thing : " All 



