The Literature of Tobacco 221 



notes of vanity upon you ; by the custom thereof 

 making yourselves to be wondered at by all foreign 

 civil nations, and by all strangers coming in among 

 you to be scorned and contemned. A custom loath- 

 some to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the 

 brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, 

 stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the Stygian 

 smoke of the pit that is bottomless.' 



Though brevity be the soul of wit, jt cannot be 

 said that there is more wisdom in James's apothegms 

 than in his treatise. Among other pearls of speech 

 dropped by James, and afterwards collected, are four 

 relating to tobacco : 



' That tobacco was the lively image and pattern of 

 hell, for it had by allusion in it all the parts and vices 

 of the world, whereby hell may be gained, to wit : 



' First, it was a smoke ; so are the vanities of this 

 world. 



' Secondly, it delighted them who take it ; so do 

 the pleasures of the world delight the men of the 

 world. 



' Thirdly, it maketh men drunken and light in the 

 head ; so do the vanities of the world — men are 

 drunken therewith. 



' Fourthly, he that taketh tobacco saith he cannot 

 leave it, it doth bewitch him. Even so the pleasures 

 of the world make men loath to leave them, they are 

 for the most part so enchanted with them ; and further, 

 besides all this, it is like hell in the very substance of 

 it, for it is a stinking, loathsome thing, and so is hell' 



All anti-tobacconists inverted the Indian legend of 

 the origin of tobacco, and ascribed its creation to the 



