110 TOBACCO IN EUROPE. 



smoking as " so much in fashion, that methinks your 

 children begin to play with broken pipes instead of 

 corals, to make way for their teeth." 



During the reign of Charles I., no alteration was 

 made in the restrictive laws against tobacco. He also 

 continued its sale only as a royal monopoly, and 

 prohibited it from being dealt in by any but such 

 as he had appointed to the trade, who paid him a 

 heavy sum for the privilege ; a measure that proved 

 most injurious to the planters. Charles seized all the 

 profits of their industry, and disregarded their remon- 

 strances. It is recorded that when, in his days of mis- 

 fortune, he sat in the guard-chamber at Westminster, 

 the soldiers of Cromwell blew their tobacco smoke in 

 his face, knowing that he had almost as strong a 

 dislike to it as his father had. 



In the Ashmolean MSS. at Oxford (No. 38, art. 489) 

 is the following tirade " against tobacco : " — 



: Of all the plants that Tellus' bosome yields 

 In groves, glades, gardens, marshes, mountaines, fieldes, 

 None so pernitious to man's life is knowne 

 As is tobacco, saving hemp alone ; 

 Betwixt which two there seemes great sympathy 

 To ruinate poore Adam's progeny. 

 For in them both a strangling virtue note ; 

 And both of them doe worke upon the throate. 

 The one within it, and without the other, 

 And th' one prepareth worke unto the t'other. 

 For there doth meete, I meane at jaile and gallowes, 

 More of these beastly, base tobacco fellowes, 

 Than hence to any prophane haunt doe use, 

 Excepting still the playhouse and the stewes, 

 Seeth to there comon lot so double choaked, 

 Just bacon like to be hanged up and 



