Tobacco and Genius 243 



a smoker. Porson, critic and Greek scholar, speak- 

 ing of the decline of smoking in the eighteenth 

 century, declared that when tobacco began to go out 

 of fashion learning began to go too. 



Dr. Parr and his pipe will go down to posterity 

 together. He smoked incessantly, in season and out 

 of season ; wherever he was he must have a smoke, 

 for ' No pipe, no Parr ' was his motto. He never 

 wrote without the inspiration of tobacco ; he describes 

 himself as ' rolling volcanic fumes of tobacco to the 

 ceiling.' Even in the presence of ladies and of 

 royalty, in the drawing-room as well as the dining- 

 room, he would smoke, usually detaching a young 

 lady to load and light his pipe. At Cambridge, when 

 the Duke of Gloucester was f^ted by the University 

 on his inauguration as Chancellor, Parr lit his pipe 

 directly the cloth was removed, ' blowing a cloud into 

 the faces of his neighbours, much to their annoyance, 

 and causing royalty to sneeze by the stimulating 

 stench of mundungus.' Parr carried smoking to 

 excess, and lacked the courtesy of the true smoker 

 in thus insisting on his pipe. His biographer might 

 well declare that tobacco calmed Parr's spirits. ' It 

 assisted his private ruminations ; it was his com- 

 panion in anxiety ; it was his helpmeet in composi- 

 tion.' 



The reaction against tobacco in the eighteenth 

 century did not affect the great men. Pope and 

 Swift took both snuff and tobacco. Addison and 

 Steele smoked many a pipe with Sir Roger de 

 Coverley. Bolingbroke, Prior, Phillips, and Sterne 

 were all smokers. Dr. Johnson smoked like a 



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