244 NARCOTIC USAGES AND SUPERSTITIONS 



the hospitable hearth within But, in lieu of this he notes a more 

 perplexing smoke which "proceeds from nostrils and from throats of 

 ladies, lords, and silly grooms," and exclaims astonished : — 



'' Great Belzabub ! can all spit fire as well as thine ?" 



But his fellow Incubus allays his fears by telling him that this 

 novelty : — 



" Was an Indian weed, 

 That fumed away more wealth than would a nv.iuy thousands feed." 



Tobacco, therefore, was not only in use, but already indulged in to 

 an extravagant excess, in Shakespeare's later years. Though un- 

 named in his works, it repeatedly occurs in those of Decker, Middle- 

 ton, and others of the early minor dramatists ; and still more 

 fat. iliarily in those of Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and others 

 of later date. In Middletou's " Roaring Girl," produced in Kill, 

 five years before the death of Shakespeaer, and peculiarly valuable 

 from the lively, though sufficiently coarse picture it furnishes of 

 London manners in his day, we learn that "a pipe of smoak" was to 

 be purchased for sixpence. In Ben Jonson's " Alchemist," of the 

 same date, " Drugger, the tobacco man," plajs a part ; and a similar 

 character figures among the dramatis parsoiue of Beaumont and 

 Fletcher's " Scornful Ladj'." Moreover, the earliest of these notices 

 not only refers to the costliness of the luxurious weed, witli a pipe of 

 which. Drugger bribes the Alchemist ; but the allusions are no less 

 distinct to the adulterations practised even at so early a date, and 

 which were no doubt hinted at by Jonson in the name of his tobac- 

 conist. '• Doctor" exclaims Face, the servitor, to Subtle the Al- 

 chemist, when introducing Abel Drugger to his favourable notice, 

 (Act. I., Scene I. ): — 



'' Doctor, do you hear ! 



This is my friend Abel, an honest fellow; 



He lets me have good tobacco, and he does uot 



Sophisticate it with sack-lees or oil, 



Nor washes it in muscndel and grains, 



Nor buries it in giavel under ground, 



Wrapp'd up in greasy leather, or piss'rl clouts, 



But keeps it in fine lily pots, that open'd 



Smell like conserves of roses, or French beans.'' 



It is obvious here that, even thus early, Ben Jonson's allusions to 

 the favourite '' weed" are not to an unfamiliar novelty ; though both 

 with him, and in the later works of Beaumont and Fletcher, it is re- 

 ferred to invariably as a costly luxury. " Tie! good tobacco, this !" 

 exclaims Subtle, " what is't an ounce P" and Savil, the steward, in 



