Tobacco and Genius 237 



and was recognised by the first drinkers of tobacco. 

 It was with truth that Richard Braithwait, in his 

 ' Smoking Age/ represents Pluto as directing Tobacco 

 to pay particular court to the scholar and poet : ' They 

 will be thine if thou take in their element.' ' Scholars,' 

 noted a historian in 1659, ' use it much, and many 

 grave and great men take tobacco to make them more 

 serviceable in their callings.' Right early did men of 

 mind discover the virtues of tobacco. There are but 

 few of the world's great men whose indebtedness to 

 the divine herb the above verse does not express. 



It has not escaped observation that the introduction 

 of tobacco into the Old World was synchronous with 

 the outburst of genius that illuminated the sixteenth 

 century. The golden age of England was an age of 

 tobacco. The giants of literature, statecraft, adven- 

 ture and empire-building were all inspired by the 

 fumes of tobacco ; the empire of Britain was founded 

 amidst clouds of smoke. The era of the weed's entry 

 was that of the most brilliant achievements of the 

 human mind. 



Recall that most brilliant company to whom 

 Raleigh introduced the virtues of the matchless 

 herb, instructing them in the ' forms for the assump- 

 tion of it.' Spenser learned from Raleigh how to 

 take the divine tobacco, as he took the first oppor- 

 tunity of calling it. Did not tobacco inspire the 

 ' Faerie Queene ' ? Shakespeare never mentions or 

 alludes to smoking, though the practice was pur- 

 sued in his own theatre, the Globe. Not a single 

 passage in his works can be construed into reference 

 to tobacco. Still, we think of him as a great smoker. 



