A SMOKER’S RHAPSODY. 87 
model of theirs, so original; and, finally, the preparation of 
the leaves so peculiar, that they could not possibly derive all 
this from America by way of Europe, especially as India, 
where the practice of smoking is not so general, intervenes 
between Persia and China. Meyen also states that the con- 
sumption of tobacco in the Chinese empire is of immense 
extent, and the practice seems to be of great antiquity, “for 
on very old sculptures I have observed the very same tobacco 
pipes which are still used.” Besides, we now know that the 
plant which furnishes the Chinese tobacco is evén said to 
grow wild in the East Indies. 
“Tobacco,” says Loudon, “ was introduced into the county 
of Cork, with the potatoe, by Sir Walter eee A 
quaint writer of this period says of the plant: “Tobacco, 
that éxcellent plant, the use whereof (as of fifth element) the 
world cannot want, is that little shop of Nature, wherein her 
whole workmanship is abridged; where you may see earth 
kindled into fire, the fire breathe out an exhalation, which 
entering in at the mouth walks through the regions of a 
man’s brain, drives out all ill vapors’ but itself, draws down 
all bad humors by the mouth, which in time might breed a 
scab over the whole body, if already they have not; a plant 
of singular use; for, on the one side Nature being an enemy 
to vacuity and emptiness and on the other, there being so 
many empty brains in the world as there are, how shall 
Nature’s course be continued? How shall those empty 
brains be filled but with air, Nature’s immediate instrument 
to that purpose? If with air, what so proper as your fume; 
what fume so healthful as your perfume, what perfume so 
sovereign as tobacco. Besides the excellent edge it gives a 
man’s wit, as they but judge that have been present at a 
feast of tobacco, where commonly all good wits are consoled ; 
what variety of discourse it begets, what sparks of wit it 
yields?” * 
The name of Sir Walter is intimately connected with the 
history of tobacco, and is associated with many of the bril- 
liant exploits and explorations during the reign of the 
illustrious Elizabeth.t His name has come down to us as 
*A writer in the “New England Magazine” saysin a diffcrent strain: “Thisis the enemy that 
men put in their mouths, to steal away their health. This has filled the camp, the court, the 
grove. It is found in the pulpit, the senate, the bar and the boudoir.” 
{Thorpe, in his “History and Mystery of Tobacco,” relates the following anecdote: “Tra 
dition siys, that in the time of Queen Elizabeth Sir Walter Raleigh used to sit at his door 
with Sir Hugh Middleton and smoke.” j 
