ANECDOTES OF EALEIGH. 51 



tobacco-plant seems, however, to have been known in 

 England earlier. Stow in his Annals, declares, that 

 " tobacco came into England about the twentieth year 

 of Queen Elizabeth" (1577), but Taylor the "Water- 

 poet assigns an earlier date, he says " Tobacco was 

 first brought into England in 1565, by Sir John 

 Hawkins." * Lobelius, in his Novum Stirpium Adver- 

 saria (Antwerp 1576), declares that "within these few 

 years " the West Indian tobacco had become " an 

 inmate of England." Ealeigh was certainly the first 

 devoted adherent of smoking in England, and in spite 

 of his courtiership when a queen ruled, ostentatiously 

 enjoyed his pipe. Aubrey has noted, "He was the 

 first that brought tobacco into England, and into 

 fashion. In our part of North Wilts — e.g. Malmsbury 

 Hunclred — it came first into fashion by Sir Walter 

 Long. They had first silver pipes. The ordinary 

 sort made use of a walnut shell and a strawe. I have 

 heard my grandfather Lyte say, that one pipe was 

 handed from man to man round the table. Sir W. K. 



Myddelton, who fought at Azores in 1591 : — "It is sayed that he, with 

 Captain Thomas Price of Plasyollin, and one Captain Koet, were the first 

 who smoked, or (as they called it) drank tobacco publickly in London, and 

 that the Londoners flocked from all parts to see them. Pipes were not 

 then invented, so they used the twisted leaves or segars." He gives this 

 on the authority of the Sebright MS. , and adds, ' ' The invention is usually 

 ascribed to Sir Walter Ealeigh. It may be so, but he was too good a 

 courtier to smoke in public, especially in the reign of James." 



* Postscript to The Old, Old, Very Old Man, pr Life of Thomas Parr. 

 1635. The translator of Everard's Panacea, in 1659, says : — "Captain 

 Eichard Grenfield and Sir Francis Drake were the first planters of it here, 

 and not Sir Walter Ealeigh, which is the common error ; so difficult is 

 it to fix popular discoveries." 



e 2 



