DISQUISITION ON SMOKING. 327 



would of fishing, or a huntsman of hunting. But he 

 might also have felt, that his judgment, thus biassed, 

 scarcely allowed him to speak as an impartial advocate ; 

 anxious to allow to his fellow-man an innocent indul- 

 gence, in a proper spirit of fairness, and not permit 

 prejudice to become persecution. .He might thus, like 

 Chapman's "Monsieur d' Olive " have become: — 



' ' Angry to hear this generous tobacco, 

 The gentleman's saint and the soldier's idol, 

 So ignorantly polluted." 



Free from the prejudice that might be imputed 

 to him had he held the pipe as well as the pen, he has 

 been able from long observation which he has never 

 ceased to make, to form a judgment upon certain 

 facts which have accumulated over many years, and that 

 judgment he thinks it right he should not withhold 

 from the reader. 



It has been, and is constantly alleged, that smoking 

 leads to drinking. It certainly never induced our 

 Saxon ancestors to drink ; and they were notorious 

 drunkards. The English, as a nation, were hard 

 drinkers, long before the fumes of tobacco crossed 

 their wine and beer cups. They are probably less 

 given to drink at the present day, than at any period 

 of their history : and while tobacco-smoking is on the 

 increase. The Turks and the French smoke much, 

 and both are essentially sober nations.* 



* On the subject of this useful influence of tobacco-smoking in the East, 

 see the testimony given by Lane, p. 158 of this volume. 



