228 TOBACCO-PIPES, CIGARS, ETC. 



ones, and were covered with rudely executed orna- 

 ments and inscriptions. Pictured semblances of their 

 'own good ships were common on the lids, and Dutch 

 tobacco-boxes, or boxes in their style, were common to 

 English sailors. They were the love-gifts of sweet- 

 hearts, who : 



" Gave them the 'bacca box mark'd with her name," 



and were kept as sacred memorials of those " on 

 shore." Tobacco-boxes were bequeathed to " mess- 

 mates " as parting gifts of friendship in death, and 

 such souvenirs were as affectionately esteemed as if 

 they had been formed 



" Of one entire and perfect chrysolite." 



A certain Mr. Pynsent who left all his estates in 

 Somersetshire to the great Lord Chatham (the father 

 of Pitt), in admiration of his talents and patriotism, 

 possessed a tobacco-box on which, under a skull, was 

 engraved : — 



" Mens Ignis, Tubulus corpus, mihi vitaque furnus. 

 Herba Panis, Clavus fata, suprema Cinis." 



Which has been thus "rendered into English : " — 



Of lordly man, how humbling is the type, 

 A fleeting shadow, a tobacco pipe ! 

 His mind the fire, his frame the tube of clay, 

 His breath the smoke so idly puffed away, 

 His food the herb that fills the hollow bowl, 

 Death is the stopper, Ashes end the whole." 



