2 ST NICOTINE 



heard on all sides about the men who made chimneys of 

 their noses. The important part the exotic played in life's 

 comedy led the youthful aspirant to literary fame, Sir John 

 Beaumont, to think that he could not do better than soar 

 on the wings of the weed to the Parnassus he had already 

 in view. Barely twenty, full of exuberance and lofty ideals, 

 he poured forth his musings in a grand imitation of heroic 

 verse. His work is entitled, ' The Metamorphosis of 

 Tobacco,'* (1602) and is dedicated to his friend ' Maister 

 Michael Drayton,' whom he asks to take up the lines, 



Tobacco like, unto thy brain 

 And that divinely touched, puff out the smoke again. 



Ambitious to excel and full of noble endeavour he exclaims, 



Let me the sound of great Tobacco praise 

 A pitch above those love-sick poets raise. 



He conceives the idea of a parliament of the elements 

 assembled to hear the complaint of Prometheus that his 

 work is imperfect. He calls for help, and the Earth is 

 invoked. But ' Grandame Ops her grieved head did shake.' 

 She declares however that, 



A plant shall from my wrinkled forehead spring 

 Which once enflamed with the stolne heavenly fire 

 Shall breath into this lifeless corse inspire. 



Despite of Fate the elements combine to form the plant. 

 Their work accomplished, it is found that Tellus had 

 tempered too much terrene corruption in its composition. 

 But for this 



* On the title-page is a picture of a bi-forked hill with a tall 

 Virginian tobacco plant growing in the cleft. A scroll bears 

 the motto, Digna Paniasso et Apolline. There is an excellent 

 copy of the work in the long-room of the British Museum. 



