Tobacco in English Social Life 69 



James I., and his successors down to the present day, 

 against the habit. He declared that some gentlemen 

 smoked three or four hundred pounds' worth of 

 tobacco yearly ; but he must, surely, have meant 

 Scots pounds. 



The costliness of the herb led to its adulteration 

 even in that early age. The poorer people were 

 accustomed to mix coltsfoot with tobacco to eke out 

 the latter, while Ben Jonson speaks of the apothe- 

 caries 'sophisticating' tobacco with sack, lees, oil, 

 muscadel and grains. 



The anger and satire of poets and philosophers at 

 the widespread practice of smoking passed into 

 mournful lamentation. Powerless to stop the pro- 

 gress of tobacco they were obliged to content them- 

 selves with pointing out its absurdity and waste. 

 In 'The Honestie of this Age,' 1614, Barnaby Rich 

 says there were seven thousand shops, ' in every lane 

 and in every corner about London,' where tobacco 

 was sold. ' It may well be supposed,' says this 

 serious statistician, ' it to be an ill-customed shop that 

 taketh not five shillings a day, one day with another 

 throughout the year, but let us make our account but 

 after two shillings and sixpence a day. . . . Let us 

 then reckon thus : seven thousand half-crowns a day 

 amounteth just to three hundred and nineteen thou- 

 sand, three hundred and seventy-five pounds a year, 

 summa totalis, all spent in smoke.' What, we wonder, 

 would Barnaby Rich have thought of the eleven 

 millions sterling per annum which tobacco now con- 

 tributes to the National Revenue ? 



So common and constant did the use of tobacco 



