Ale, and Tobacco 51 



5 19. Tobacco is a drinke too. The expression "to drink tobacco" was in common 

 use. Henry Buttes, in his Diets Dry Dinner, 1599, caUs tobacco a "dry drink." 



545. I see Tobacco is sophisticated. The adulteration of tobacco was in the 

 seventeenth century and is today practiced for two purposes, to heighten the taste 

 and to cheapen. For the first use of adulterants cf. Jonson, The Alchemist, I, 

 iii, 21 ff., and Barclay, Nepenthes (1614): "They sophisticate and farde the same 

 (i. e. poor, tasteless tobacco) in sundrie sortes, with black spice, galanga, aqua 

 vitae, Spanish wine, anise" etc. For the second use of adulterants see Jonson, 

 Bartholomew Fair, II, ii, 27 (Ed. Alden, Yale Studies in English, 35); "Three pence 

 a pipe full, I will ha' made of all my whole halte pound of tobacco, and a quarter 

 of a pound of coltsfoot, mixt with it too, to itch it out." Cf . the pamphlet entitled 

 The Perfuming of Tobacco and the Great Abuse committed in it (1611). 



555. all the verities. Cf. Thorius, Hymnus Tabaci (ed. of 1628, p. 9) : 



"In primis non tma subest natura stupendo 

 In f oho : adversis dives virtutibus omnem 

 Exuperare fidem gaudet." 



559. a heavenly quintessence, a divine herbe. Cf. Sharpham, The Fleire (1600) 

 (Ed. Hunold Nibbe, 1912, line 265): "the divine smoke of this Celestiall herbe." 

 "Divine" was a traditional epithet for tobacco. Cf. Spenser, Faerie Queene, III, 

 V, stanza 32: "Whether yt divine Tobacco were." Also Jonson, Every Man in his 

 Humour, III, ii: "Therefore it cannot be but 'tis most divine." Again, The 

 Metamorphosis of Tobacco (1602) (Reprinted by CoUier, Illustrations of Early 

 English Literature) : 



"There dids't thou gather in Parnassus clift 

 This precious herbe, Tabacco most divine." 



According to Howell, Familiar Letters, III, vii, the Spaniards called Tobacco the 

 "holy herb." 



567. You destroy it. Cf. the Wine and Water debates, in which this motive 

 is recurrent. E. g. Denudala Verilate (DuMeril, Poesies inedites, pp. 304-5. 173): 



"Mensa pro te (i. e. Aqua) non ornatur; 

 NuUus per te fabulatur 



In tui praesentia, 

 Sed qui prius est jocundus, 

 Ridens, verboque facundus, 

 Non rumpit silentia. 



Tu (i. e. Vinum) scis linguas impedire 

 Titubando solet ire 



Tua sumens basia; 

 Verba recte non discemens. 

 Centum putat esse, cernens 



Duo luminaria." 



