84 The Soverane Herbe 



tion, the scorn, the satire and the arguments against 

 tobacco of the moralists of James I. passed into mere 

 lamentation and doleful foreboding a century later. 

 They recognised the uselessness of these weapons 

 against the habit. Logic could not shake, wisdom 

 overthrow, nor satire and wit scathe the position of 

 tobacco. All that the enemies of tobacco could do 

 in the reign of Queen Anne was mournfully to note 

 its progress, lament over its use, and dolefully 

 prophesy its dire consequences. In 1703 one Law- 

 rence Spooner lugubriously declared that ' in two 

 miles ' compass may be found a thousand families or 

 persons in country villages that one with another do 

 smoak, snuff or chaw the year round one penny a 

 day, and most of these coal or lime men, fire- 

 men, etc' The cost of this nicotian indulgence was 

 ;£^i,525 a year, which, ' if improved thriftily, in 20 

 years would amount to more than ;^ 130,000 to divide 

 amongst the smokers and their heirs for ever. By 

 which the world may see what mischief this Land 

 Robber doth amongst them.' He could compare the 

 use of tobacco ' to nothing but the waters of Noah, 

 that swelled fifteen cubits above the highest moun- 

 tain,' and gloomily prophesied that ' in an age or two 

 it will be as hard to find a family free as it was so 

 long time since one that commonly took it' — A 

 prophecy well fulfilled. 



Dr. Davenant states that from 1702 to 1709 the 

 aggregate consumption in England and Wales was 

 11,260,659 pounds a year. This averaged over 2 

 pounds per head of the population ; only during the 

 last three years, after the steady increase of the nine- 



