OF THE OLD AND NEW WOULD. 343 



of Newcastle-on-Tyne. It may very fitly be appended as a note 

 to this sketch, as sufficing to show the latest views of my friend, Dr. 

 Bruce, on the antiquity of pipes and tobacco. It will be seen that 

 he still speaks of the miniature Elfin pipes as medieval ; but subse- 

 quent remarks seem to indicate that by this term he means the era 

 of Queen Elizabeth, if not indeed that of the Revolution, though 

 neither of them would be generally recognised as pertaining to the 

 province of the medieval historian. 



"A PAPER — OF TOBACCO." 



" Dr. Bruce said, when the circular convening the meeting was issued, there 

 was no paper in prospect, and he had therefore written a short one, not anticipating 

 the many interesting commuuications which had filled up the meeting so agreeably. 

 His paper was on the subject of the clay-pipes occasionally found in situations 

 where we should ouly expect to find remains of a time long anterior to that of 

 Sir Walter Raleigh. To this subject his attention had been turned, within the last 

 few days, by a letter received by the Treasurer (Mr. Feu wick) from a mutual 

 friend — Dr. Daniel Wilson, of Toronto. The Doctor wrote . — ' What says Dr 

 Bruce to the Roman tobacco-pipes now ? Tell him I have got a crow to pluck 

 with him for that. I get quoted from his pages, and held responsible for much 

 more than I ever thought, said, or meant to say. Let him look-out for a missive 

 from the land of tobacco.' The passage referred to, in his (Dr. Bruce's) second 

 edition of ' The Roman Wall/ had, curiously enough, aud vexatiously enough, been 

 more quoted and translated, perhaps, than any other. It asked if smoking pipes 

 must be numbered among Roman remains — such pipes, (some of the ordiuary size, 

 others of pigmy dimensions, with intermediate sizes,) having been found in Roman 

 stations, in close association with remains of undoubted Roman origin. Dr. Wilson 

 was quoted on the subject, where, in his Archaeology of Scotland, he speak* of 

 " Celtic,'' " Elfin," or " Danes' " pipes, occasionally found under circumstances 

 raising the supposition that tobacco was only introduced as a superior substitute 

 for older narcotics. Dr. Bruce produced several specimens — one, a tiny bowl, dug 

 from a depth of ten feet, in 1S54, at the back of the Assembly Rooms of Newcastle, 

 where, when a sewer under the Vicarage House was in course of construction, he 

 was on the look-out for remains of the Roman Wall. Tn the Antwerp Museum, 

 such pipes are exhibited as Roman antiquities ; and some were found near the 

 foundations of the Wall of Roman London, when laid bare in 1853. Still, to Dr. 

 Wilson's Transatlantic inquiry : ' What says he to the Roman tobacco pipes now ?' 

 he had to reply, that he feared they were but medieval, and, moreover, of a late 

 date. He would briefly state the grounds of this conclusion : — 1. They were only 

 met with, here and there, in connection with Roman remains ; while in every 

 Roman station, all the kinds of pottery used by the Romans were invariably 

 found. — 2. No traces of the practice of smoking presented themselves in classic 

 authors. — 3. Ancient herbals contained no notice of any vegetable used for smoking 

 with pipes. — 4. These old pipes, laid together, exhibited a regular gradation in size, 

 from the fairy bowl to the pipe of the present day. — 5. Elfin pipes were fomid 

 some few years ago at Hoyiake, in Cheshire, on the site where the troops of 

 William III. were encamped previous to their embarkation for Ireland ; on the 

 battle-field of Boyne, at Dundalk, and in other parts of Ireland where William's 



