126 TOBACCO IN EUROPE. 



profound theologists, but also begets moral philoso- 

 phers : witness the following sonnet : — 



' ' Sweet smoking pipe ; bright glowing stove, 

 Companion still of my retreat, 

 Thou dost my gloomy thoughts remove, 

 And purge my brain with gentle heat. 



' ' Tobacco, charmer of my mind, 



When, like the meteors transient gleam, 

 Thy substance gone to air, I find, 

 I think, alas, my life's the same ! 



" What else but lighted dust am I ? 



Thou show'st me what my fate will be ; 

 And when tin* sinking ashes die, 

 I learn that I must end like thee." 



Dr. Henry Aldrich, the musical Dean of Christ- 

 church Oxford, well known from his popular Glee 

 "Hark! the bonny Christ-church bells;" was a smoker* 

 also, and composed the following quaint " Catch on 

 Tobacco ; to be sung by four men at the time of 

 smoaking their pipes ; " which we here reprint, from 

 The Second Book of the Pleasant Musical Companion, 

 1087. 



Good ! good indeed ! 



The Herb's good weed ; 

 Fill thy pipe, Will, and I prithee, Sam, fill, 

 For sure we may smoak, and yet sing still ; 

 For what say the learned ? Vita fumus, 

 'Tis what you and I, and he and I, and all of us, Sumus. 



* There is an amusing anecdote related of the Dean's continuous devotion 

 to his pipe. One of the students betted another that however early, or at 

 whatever time the Doctor was visited in his own sanctum, he would be 

 found smoking. The bet was taken, and at once the Dean was visited ; 

 when the reason of the visit was given, " Your friend has lost,"' said the 

 Dean, " I am not smoking, only filling my pipe." 



