TOBACCO PAPERS. 137 



trade, one of the best of the same era, Wimble and 

 Co., of Fenchurch Street, " sell all sorts of snuffs, 

 tobaccos, teas, flour of mustard, and Cayenne peppers, 

 wholesale and retail." Many of these shop-bills are 

 expensively and carefully engraved, and have 'furnished 

 us with a few curious cuts for our volume. 



Their tobacco, it is to be hoped, was of better quality 

 than their poetry : here is a sample from a bill of Von 

 der Heyde in Bermonclsey Street, 1760, representing 

 the dealer offering two boxes : — 



Here's two full boxes, taste which you think right, 

 The one's to smoak, the other's to clear the sight ; 

 I do declare they're both the very best ; 

 Then pray confess I'm the Tobacconist." 



Such rhymes were frequently printed on tobacco - 

 papers, which occasionally exhibited an enigma, puzzle, 

 or charade, for the amusement of the customer; a 

 custom, that can be traced as far back as the middle 

 of the seventeenth century. In 17-18, an American 

 printed " choice Pennsylvania tobacco-paper," and 

 turned to that account some papal bulls captured in a 

 Spanish vessel ; and he declared his willingness to sell 

 " at a much cheaper rate than they can be purchased 

 of the French and Spanish priests, and yet will be 

 warranted to be of the same advantage to the pos- 

 sessors." This fashion of giving "something literary" 

 on tobacco-papers, was very customary about twenty 

 years ago, and embraced a large variety of topics : they 

 were printed within a " type-border," in the centre of a 



