Snuff and Snuff- takers 273 



All the Georges took snuff. George IV. was 

 especially famed, when Regent, for his taste in snuff. 

 He was very fastidious, and threw his box away in 

 anger when a gentleman at a masked ball took a pinch 

 from it. His mother and his wife, the ill-fated 

 Queen Caroline, both took snuff, as became leaders 

 of society. 



Marie Antoinette found in snuff consolation for 

 her trials and terrors. 



Though Napoleon abhorred smoking, he carried 

 snuff in his waistcoat-pocket, and took it profusely. 

 At Waterloo he used it incessantly, but spilt more 

 than he imbibed. During his exile in Elba his 

 followers in France used violet (Napoleon's favourite 

 flower) scented snuff. Offering a pinch, they asked 

 significantly : ' Do you love this perfume ?' ' Yes,' 

 was the reply of a Bonapartist. ' I long for the 

 spring, when the flower now faded shall again wear 

 the purple, and when its breath shall be felt even 

 farther than its colour can be seen.' 



Napoleon calmed and stimulated his mind with 

 snuff. Moltke was the last of the famous snuff- 

 takers ; during the Franco-German War he consumed 

 a pound a week. 



In the museum of the Society of Antiquaries of 

 Scotland is Burns's snuff-mull, a plain horn with silver 

 plate, engraved ' R.B.' Whately used to take hand- 

 fuls of snuff when lecturing. Leigh Hunt translated 

 some Italian poems in praise of snuff. Talleyrand's 

 maxim as to the diplomatic use of snuff is obsolete 

 now. Lord Rosebery is the only snuff-taker of 

 statecraft, if an advertisement for the recovery of a 



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