The Literature of Tobacco 22^ 



Finally, Braithwait conjures up Chaucer's ghost to 

 abuse tobacco, which feat he accomplishes to his 

 own satisfaction. 



All the anti-smokers agreed in ascribing the 

 parentage of tobacco to the Prince of Darkness. 

 Peter Hausted wrote in fine fury : 



' Let it be damned to hell, and call'd from thence 

 Proserpine's wine, the Furie's frankincense, 

 The Devil's addle eggs.' 



In a play of Brewer's ' the mighty Emperor 

 Tobacco, King of Trinidado,' is declared to be the 

 son of Vulcan and Tellus, and a relative of Bacchus. 

 In the eighteenth century the Athenian Oracle ex- 

 plained that ' when the Christians first discovered 

 America the Devil was afraid of losing his hold of 

 the people there by the appearance of Christianity. 

 He is reported to have told some Indians of his 

 acquaintance that he had found a way to be revenged 

 upon the Christians for beating up his quarters, for he 

 would teach them to take tobacco, to which, when 

 they had once tasted, they should become perpetual 

 slaves.' 



In his ' Gipsies Metamorphosis ' Ben Jonson 

 attacked tobacco in a manner so much after James's 

 own heart that the King had the play performed 

 before him three times. Jonson called tobacco ' the 

 Devil's own weed,' but there is reason to believe that 

 rare Ben knew the virtues of a pipe of Virginia, 

 though politically concealing his taste. 



The smokers even ventured to carry the war into 

 the enemy's camp ; in a play, ' The Marriage of the 



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