130 TOBACCO IN EUROPE. 



the practice, and in no degree diminished the enjoy- 

 ment of a " cheerful pipe." Hogarth, in his Modern 

 Midnight Conversation, has introduced one in full 

 canonicals, amid the merry party, smoking like a 

 steam-engine and carrying a ring tobacco-stopper on 

 his finger. To he sure, if the parson he the famous 

 orator Henley (as some 

 say, but do not prove*), 

 it is no very creditable 

 exemplar of the cloth ; 

 but that the custom was 

 common with reverend 

 sons of the Church appears 

 from abundant authority ; 

 and that it still, or till 

 very lately, was the solace of the country parson 

 any one acquainted with village life can tell. The 

 author has known several such smokers ; and can also 

 instance a London clergyman of much reputation, with 

 great power in the Arts as well as in literature, who 

 always smoked in his vestry after Prayers, during the 

 Psalm, while waiting to begin his sermon. 



When Sir Robert Walpole, in 1782, introduced his 

 excise bill into parliament, the greatest popular hatred 

 was immediately evinced towards the measure. To- 

 bacco was one of the articles especially " excised," and 

 the un-English and inquisitorial power ultimately given 



* Mrs. Piozzi was of opinion that it represented "Parson Ford," 

 Dr. Johnson's uncle. 



