Tobacco in English Social Life 63 



head [a hunting term denoting the age of stags], 

 more or less, and whose lands are but new come into 

 his hands, that to be as exactly qualified as the best 

 of our ordinary gallants are, is affected to entertain 

 the most gentleman-like use of tobacco ; as first to 

 give it the most exquisite perfume, then to know all 

 the delicate sweet forms for the assumption of it, as 

 also the rare corollary and practice of the Cuban 

 ebolition, Euripus [a rapid inhalation and expulsion 

 of the smoke] and Whiffe, which he shall receive or 

 take in here at London and evaporate at Uxbridge 

 or farther if it please him. If there be any such 

 generous spirit that is truly enamoured of these good 

 faculties ; may it please him but by note of his hand 

 to specify the place or ordinary where he uses to eat 

 and lie, and most sweet attendance with Tobacco and 

 pipes of the best sort shall be ministered. Stet, quceso 

 candide lector.' 



Each smoking-master had his own special feat of 

 smoking, and his placard warned ambitious youths 

 from thinking that they could learn the latest and 

 most fashionable modes from anyone but him- 

 self. A highly esteemed trick was swallowing and 

 retaining the smoke for some time before expelling 

 it. Another was to discharge the smoke evenly 

 in a certain' number of seconds, neither more nor 

 less. 



'Do you profess,' asks one of Ben Jonson's am- 

 bitious gallants, ' these sleights of tobacco ?' 



' I do more than profess, sir, and if you please to be 

 a practitioner I will undertake in one fortnight to 

 bring you that you shall take it plausibly in any 



