236 TOBACCO-PIPES, CIGARS, ETC. 



cheap tobacco-stoppers were cut in hard wood, some 

 few in mahogany; but by far the greatest number were 

 cast in brass, like the specimens we engrave, which are 

 all in that material, with the exception of Fig. 3. 



In the Shrubs of Parnassus, a small volume of 

 poetical essays, published in 1760 (under an assumed 

 name), by James Bo swell, the famous biographer of 

 Johnson; is one devoted to the tobacco-stopper, which 

 is curiously descriptive of those in ordinary use at 

 that time : — 



" ! let me grasp thy waist, be thou of wood, 

 Or lsevigated steel, for well 'tis known 

 Thy habit is diverse. In iron clad 

 Sometimes thy feature roughens to the sight ; 

 And oft transparent art thou seen in glass, 

 Portending frangibility. The son 

 Of labouring mechanism here displays 

 Exuberance of skill. The curious knot, 

 The motley flourish winding down thy sides, 

 And freaks of fancy pour upon the view 

 Their complicated charms, and as they please, 

 Astonish. While with glee thy touch I feel 

 No harm my finger dreads.* No fractured pipe 

 I ask, or splinter's aid, wherewith to press 

 The rising ashes down. Oh ! bless my hand, 

 Chief when thou com'st with hollow circle, crown'd 

 With sculptured signet, bearing in thy womb 

 The treasured Corkscrew. Thus a triple service 

 In firm alliance may'st thou boast." 



It was a not unfrequent desire with the old smoker 

 to associate his tobacco-stopper with some great person 

 or thing. A tree planted by a great man, a fragment 



* It is recorded of Sir Isaac Newton that on one occasion he used the 

 finger of the lady he was courting for a stopper, as he sat and smoked in 

 philosophic abstraction beside her. 



