2 28 The Soverane Herbe 



Arts,' performed by the students of Christ Church 

 College, Oxford, before James I., at Woodstock, in 

 August, 162 1, there was a song in praise of tobacco. 

 It can be understood that the King sat very restlessly 

 (indeed, it is recorded that twice he prepared to 

 retire, but was persuaded to remain) while tobacco 

 was successively hailed as a musician, a lawyer, a 

 physician, a traveller, 'a critticke,' and 'ignis fatuus,' 

 with the chorus after each verse : 



' This makes me sing so ho, so ho, boyes I 

 Ho, boyes ! sound I loudly. 



Earth ne'er did breed 



Such a jovial weed 

 Whereof to boast so proudly.' 



In the eighteenth century little was written of 

 tobacco directly, though the literature of the period 

 contains many by-passages, appreciative and other- 

 wise, of smoking. Snuff was then in, and smoking 

 out of, fashion. But the tracts and treatises of the 

 last two centuries, and the numerous contributions 

 to the periodical press, do not require notice, since 

 they contain little or nothing about tobacco that 

 is worthy of reproduction, or that had not been said 

 before, and since repeated with wearying persistency. 



From the very introduction of tobacco poets have 

 expressed in verse, indifferent on the whole it is true, 

 their devotion to tobacco. The praises of tobacco, in 

 every form and aspect, have been sung in every metre 

 and mood. To attempt to make a selection in the 

 limits of a chapter is out of the question ; the material 

 is great, and Mr. W. G. Hutchinson has garnered the 



