CONCLUDING REMARKS. 331 



than smoking has. The Continental clergy are much 

 addicted to the practice, and the elders of the Church 

 of Scotland, as well as many literary students, will be 

 ready to exclaim with Arbuckle in his Poem already 

 quoted, p. 292 : — 



" Blest be his shade, may laurels ever bloom, 

 And breathing sweets exhale around his tomb, 

 Whose penetrating nostril taught mankind 

 First, how by snuff to rouse the sleeping mind." 



We must not shut our eyes to the fact, that both 

 practices have been denounced by " the faculty " and 

 others, in no measured terms ; but we must also not 

 forget to observe, how tobacco has been blamed for the 

 production of ills impossible to be produced by its 

 means. If such imputations were not in print to be 

 referred to, the existence of such absurdities might 

 fairly be disbelieved. 



A philosophic and charitable view of the minor 

 indulgences of life, would lead us to look with no 

 frowning eye on the simple pleasures of the poor ; and 

 tobacco has been called "the anodyne of poverty." He 

 would be harsh indeed who would deprive the poor 

 man of the hard-earned solace his pipe presents ; the 

 small recompense awarded a long life of toil. There 

 must be some charm which he in his narrow philo- 

 sophy cannot comprehend; which can recompense in 

 the pipe the toil and privation endured by the labourer, 

 the discomfort of the sailor on a stormy deck, or the 

 soldier in the trenches. As a comfort to the poor, as 

 a luxury to the rich, tobacco unites all classes in a 



