120 TOBACCO IN EUKOPE. 



London (1665), tobacco was recommended and gene- 

 rally taken, as a preventive of infection. The phy- 

 sicians and those who attended the sick, took it very 

 freely ; those who went round with the dead-carts, had 

 their pipes continually lighted. It was popularly re- 

 ported, and as generally believed, that no tobacconists 

 or their households were afflicted by the pestilence. 

 This gave tobacco a new popularity, and it again 

 took the high medical position assumed for it by the 

 earlier physicians of the French Court. 



In a broadside poem published about 1670, entitled 

 " Nicotiance Encomium ; or the Golden Leaf Tabacco 

 display'd in its sovereignty and singular vertues," its 

 efficacy against the plague is particularly dwelt upon: — 



" If the Grand Bugbear Toad, the Plague, ye fear: 

 Lo ! under God your antidote is here." 



All diseases are declared to be quelled by it : — 



" Ye hot, ye cold, ye Rheumatick draw nigh ; 

 In this rich leafe a sovereign dose doth lie. 

 We'll cure ye all : Physick ye need not want, 

 Here 'tis, f th' gummy entrails of a Plant." 



At the feasts of the Mayor and citizens of Lon- 

 don, pipes and tobacco were served; and in the 

 Lord Mayor's Show of 1672, the Londoners were 

 treated to "two exceeding great rarities, that is there 

 are two extreme great giants, each of them at least 

 fifteen foot high, that do sit, and are drawn by horses 

 in two several chariots, moving, talking, and taking 



