248 NARCOTIC USAGES AND SUPERSTITIONS 



Lerwick, in the Orkneys ; I remarked in reference to such notices 

 that some of them were certainly suggestive of the little Ellin pipes 

 belonging to a remote era. When, however, my esteemed friend Dr. 

 Bruce, quoted me in seeming confirmation of, at least the possibility 

 that the old Roman Legionary of Hadrian or Severus occasionally 

 solaced himself with a pipe, as he kept watch and ward on the 

 ancient barrier which in the first centuries of our era marked the 

 outer verge of the Roman world, he took from the page just as much 

 as sufficed to give a delicate flavor of possibility to the fancy, so pleasant 

 to the mind of a genuine devotee of the luxurious weed, that the 

 tobacco-pipe is a classic institution ! 



I doubt not but the learned Roman Antiquary of Pons iElia, in his 

 zeal to provide the Tungrian Legionaries of old Borcovicus, or the 

 Spanish Yarduli of liremenium, with the consolations of a pipe, to 

 beguile their dreary outlook from that bleak Northumbrian outpost 

 of Imperial civilzation, most honestly ami unwittingly overlooked 

 whatever failed to square with the manifest fitness of so pleasant a 

 conceit ; nor did it ever occur to me to think of putting the old 

 Tungrians' pipe out, by continuing the quotation, until now when, 

 in the tardy access to British periodicals, I find myself quoted as an 

 authority for the antiquity of the tobacco-pipe, — not only by those 

 who, favouring such an opinion, are willing to count even the most 

 lukewarm adherent on their side, but by others who treat me as Oliver 

 Proudfuot, the bonnet maker, did his wooden sol dan, which he set up 

 merely for the pleasure of knocking it down ; or as the gallant 

 Bailie and bonnet maker of Saint Johnstoune says: "Marry, and 

 sometimes 1 will place you a bonnet (un old one most likely,) on 

 my soldan's head, and cleave it with such a downright blow, that 

 in troth, the infidel has but little of his skull remaining to hit at !" 

 Far be it from me to interfere with the practice of those who, like 

 the valiant bonnet maker, wish to make themselves familiar with the 

 use of their wi-apon on such easy terms, even though, perforce, made 

 the wooden soldan on which it is applied ; but I must confess to a 

 decided objection to being held responsible for opinions quoted only 

 for the purpose of relutation, when as it would seem, these are read 

 through such a refracting medium as the Roman spectacles of 

 an antiquary, who may be assumed without any disparagement to 

 be a little wall-eyed. 



Quotations at secondhand are never very trustworthy, and it seems 

 difficult to credit with more direct knowledge than such as may be 

 derived from the partial quotation in the " Roman "Wall," such 



