26o The Soverane Herbe 



Physicians highly praised its medicinal virtues. 

 For ' sneezing, consuming, and spending away grosse 

 and slimie humours from the ventricles of the braine ' 

 it was unequalled, and was also an effective cure for 

 ' a lethargy or vertigny, in all long griefes, paines, and 

 aches of the head, in continued senselesses or be- 

 numming of the braine, and for a hicket that pro- 

 ceedeth of repletion.' For other fleshly ills snuff was 

 triturated with vinegar or mixed with grease and 

 ointments. 



In Europe snuff was at first almost the only 

 mode of taking tobacco. Smoking was a later 

 acquisition. In England the positions of snuff and 

 tobacco were reversed, the former not coming into 

 popular use until the eighteenth century, though 

 snuff was taken to some extent by the bloods of the 

 early years of the seventeenth century, and especially 

 favoured by the Roundheads. The progress made 

 by snuff was easier than that of smoking, for it was 

 simply an adaptation of the long-established custom 

 of inhaling various aromatic and sneezing powders. 

 Shakespeare's Hotspur describes 



■ A pouncet box, which ever and anon 

 He gave his nose and took 't away again.' 



On the Continent snuff held sway to the neglect 

 of smoking. So popular did it become that, as we 

 have seen, Pope Urban VIII. found it necessary to 

 interdict its use in churches. In 1690 Rome again 

 thundered against the use of snuff in holy places. 

 Ecclesiastics were the most flagrant offenders against 

 these commands, taking snuff during the perform- 



