ITS CURATIVE VIRTUES. 47 



Herball, 1597.* It was grown in small quantities as a 

 medical herb for a long period in France, the English 

 having long preceded that nation in the indulgence of 

 smoking. 



The curative virtues of the tobacco-plant are noted 

 by two of our old poets. First Spenser in his Fairy 

 Queen makes his Belphoebe include it with other 

 medicinal herbs gathered to heal Timais : — 



" Into the woods thence-forth in haste she went, 

 To seeke for herbes that mote him remedy ; 

 For she of hearbes had great intendiment, 

 Taught of the Nymph which from her infancy 

 Her nursed had in true nobility : 

 There whether it divine Tobacco were, 

 Or Panachtea, or Polygony, 

 She found and brought it to her patient deare, 

 Who all this while lay bleeding out his heart-blood neare." 



This was written soon after the introduction of the 

 plant to England. Next William Lilly, the Euphuist 

 and court-poet to Elizabeth, in his play The Woman in 

 the Moone, 1597, makes Pandora after wounding a lover 

 with a spear, send her servant for herbs to cure it : — 



" Gather me balme and cooling violets, 

 And of our holy herb nicotian, 

 And bring withall pure honey from the hive, 

 To heale the wound of my unhappy hand." t 



Henry Buttes, in his curious little volume entitled 



* Some of the German writers describe it under the name of the Holy 

 Healing Herb (Heilig wundkraut). 



t This poet, from the testimony of his friend Nash, appears to have been 

 a "great tobacco-smoker." 



] 



