THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 51 



of ale, and go to your own suppers. Are you for this diet, 

 Sir? 



ViAT. Yes, Sir, I am for one pipe of tobacco ; and I perceive 

 yours is very good by the smell.* 



* That Walton was a smoker is seen in his tenth chapter. The prac- 

 tice, indeed, had become quite common in England among those who could 

 afford the luxury. Tobacco, Humboldt {Essai sur la JVouvelle Espagne, 

 2d ed., iii. 50) has shown to be the name given by the Haytians to their 

 pipe. Tobacco was at first beUeved to possess great medicinal properties, 

 and especially to be a specific for that dreadful disease which was brought 

 to Europe from America by the companions of Columbus. The herb was 

 sent to Spain by Cortes, but on its supposed curative powers being found 

 to have no existence, little attention was paid to it until about 1.560, when 

 it appears, according to Linnaeus and Humboldt, to have been cultivated in 

 France and Italy, the seed having been brought from Yucatan in 1559. It 

 was brought into France from Portugal by Nicot, the French ambassador 

 to that kingdom, whence its scientific name, JVicotiana tabacum. Ac- 

 cording to Lobel, it was cultivated in England as early as 1570, but it was 

 not generally used or known there until the return of Raleigh and his com- 

 panions from Virginia, where they set the fashion of the habit which they 

 had learned from the Indians. It is said that the ladies of the Court be- 

 came fond of the pipe, the virgin Queen herself enjoying the novel luxury. 

 The smokers, however, were not screened by high names from the most 

 severe satires, Ben Jonson being among the keenest of its opposers. King 

 James I. set his face against it most earnestly, and his Counter-Blast to 

 Tobacco is well known. Hawkins quotes also some sayings of the pedan- 

 tic monarch against " the noysome herb," from " j1 Collection of Witty 

 Apothegms delivered by him and others at several times and on divers 

 occasions: V2mo. 1671." "Tobacco was a lively image and pattern of 

 hell ; for that it had, by allusion, in it all the parts and vices of the world 

 whereby hell may be gained, to wit : First, It was a smoke ; so are the 

 vanities of this world. Secondly, It delighteth them who take it ; so do 

 the pleasures of this world delight the men of the world. Thirdly, It 

 maketh men drunken and light in the head ; so do the vanities of the 

 world ; men are drunken therewith. Fourthly, He that taketh tobacco 

 saith he cannot leave it — it doth bewitch him ; even so the pleasures of 

 the world make men loath to leave them, they are for the most part so en- 

 chanted with them. And further, besides all this. It is like hell in the very 

 substance of it, for it is a stinking, loathsome thing; and so is hell. And 

 further, his majesty professed that were he to invite the devil to dinner, 

 he should have three dishes : 1, a pig; 2, a pole of ling and mustard ; and 

 3, a pipe of tobacco for digestion." Besides The Counter-Blast, there 

 were at least a hundred books in various languages published against 

 tobacco. The Empress Elizabeth prohibited its use in churches, and Ur- 



