PERSECUTION. 77 



" Let us then reckon thus, seven thousand halfe- 

 crownes a clay, amounteth just to three hundred nine- 

 teen thousand, three hundred seventie-five pounds a 

 yeare, summa totalis, all spent in smoake." * 



It must not be imagined that the lovers of the herb 

 were allowed their enjoyment unmolested. It was 

 soon denounced in unmeasured terms by those who 

 did not partake of it ; and the rancour of the attack 

 was characterised by that total want of charity which 

 has ever marked those who — 



" Compound for sins they are inclined to 

 By damning those they have no mind to." 



" Modern lovers of the pipe " (observes a writer in 

 the New York Literary World, of Feb. 1848,) " seldom 

 think of the worthies to whom they are indebted for its 

 free enjoyment; and of those who delight in nasal 

 aliment, how few ever call to mind the Diocletian per- 

 secutions their predecessors passed through in adher- 

 ing to their faith in, and transmitting to their descend- 

 ants, the virtues of tobacco. Europe frowned, and 

 Asia threatened ; Pagan, Mahommedan, and Christian 

 monarchs combined to crush them. The world was 

 roused like a famishing lion from its lair, and gloated 

 on them. James I. of England, foaming with rage 

 sent forth his Counterblast ; the half savage 



tii rage, ~i 

 ruler of | 



* "The 3 companies," he also tells us, that are "now more gainefull 

 than all the seven sciences, and have gotten all the trade into their own 

 hands ; the first is to keepe an ale-house, the second a tobacco-house, and 

 the third to keep a brothell-house." 



