a depth of disrepute proportioned to the greatness of 
the hopes it had excited. It therefore did not at 
this time come into extensive use in Spain for any 
medical purpose; it was even slowly, and very spar- 
ingly, diffused as an article of luxury; it never be- 
came an object of commerce, and, for more than 
forty years after its first introduction, seems never 
to have been communicated from Spain to any other 
nation. Near as it was, we do not learn that even 
Portugal received the plant from the sister kingdom, 
but seems to have imported it from one of its own 
colonies in America; and it was certainly from Por- 
tugal, and not from Spain, that its general diffusion 
over Europe and the East commenced. 
About the year 1560, Jean Nicot of Nismes, when 
acting as French ambassador at the Portuguese court, 
was presented with a plant of tobacco, as an exotic 
of great curiosity and rarity, newly imported from 
the American settlements; and like every one else 
at that period, he was inquisitive about all the 
strange productions of the new world, and received 
it, as Neander says, lubenti anemo. Accordingly, at 
his return to France, about the year 1561 or 1562, 
he took with him a considerable number of tobacco 
plants, and made his countrymen acquainted with 
their history and uses. The new exotic was named 
Nicotiana in honour of its introducer; it was eagerly 
welcomed by the spirit of inquiry which prevailed 
even at that time in France; it was carefully and 
scientifically examined by both naturalists and phy- 
sicians; its properties and qualities were investi- 
gated; such virtues as it possessed were discovered, 
and many which it did not possess were supposed to 
be discovered. It was soon received as a valuable 
and useful addition to the Materia Medica Its in- 
troduction seemed to form a new era in the history 
of physic. Diseases and complaints, which were 
hitherto thought incurable, were now supposed to 
have found a remedy. It entered, in the shape of 
solutions, decoctions, powders and essences, into the 
composition of almost every drug; and it was applied 
as a general panacea to almost every human disease. 
Such an exaggerated idea of it prevailed that Cathe- 
rine de Medicis thought that her own name would 
derive additional glory from being connected with it; 
and she ordered it to be called, no longer Nicotiana, 
from the name of its introducer, but Herba Regine, 
in honour of herself. But, whether owing to 
the mode of cultivating it being imperfectly under- 
‘stood, or to some laws of Catherine regarding it, its 
diffusion for a long time bore no proportion to its 
fame. So late as the reign of Henry IV., it was 
‘raised only in small quantities in gardens, and used 
only for medical purposes; and not till the reign of 
Louis XIII. did it begin to come gradually into re- 
quest as a luxury, and to be taken in the shape of 
snuff. The laws passed regarding it by Catherine, 
limited the cultivation of it in several provinces, and 
altogether prohibited it in others; and these con- 
tinued in force, more or less modified, for a long 
series of years. 
About the same time that Nicot introduced the 
tobacco plant into France, St. Croix, then acting as 
papal legate in Portugal, introduced it into Italy; 
‘and here, also, it attained great repute as a medi- 
cinal herb,—though, as the temperature of the Ita- 
lians is too lively, and their climate too genial, to 
require such adventitious excitement, it was not 
adopted by them for the purpose of smoking. About 
this time, too, it was introduced into Russia, by way 
of Astrachan, from either Portugal or Italy,—into 
Holland and most parts of Germany, through means 
_ of the extensive intercourse between the Hanse 
towns and the Italians states,—into the countries 
of the Levant, through the eastward commerce of 
Venice and Genoa,—and into the vast regions around 
|| the Persian gulf and beyond the Indian ccean, in 
connexion with the vast oriental commerce of Por- 
tugal which followed the discovery of the passage 
round the Cape of Good Hope. 
Tobacco was first introduced to England, on a 
small seale, from France about the year 1570; and 
was afterwards introduced, on a large scale, from 
Virginia in 1586. It excited little notice between 
these two periods, and probably was raised only in 
small quantities, in physical gardens, for experimen- 
tal or medicinal purposes; but immediately after its 
second introduction, it drew the attention of some 
of the greatest personages in the country, and began 
to come into extensive use as a luxury. Sir Walter 
Raleigh saw it smoked by the gentleman who intro- 
duced it; and soon acquired a taste for it, and be- 
came an easy prey and a willing slave to the pipe. 
He next commenced to teach the art of smoking to 
his friends, and was in the habit of giving ‘ smoking 
parties’ at his house, when the guests were treated 
with nothing but a pipe, and a mug of ale and nut- 
meg. ‘The example of so gay and fashionable a man, 
who might be said to lead the taste of the age, 
speedily spread its influence at court; the example 
of the court was soon communicated to the coun- 
try; and in a few years smoking became pretty gen- 
eral in England. During the reign of Elizabeth, 
this fashion got into great repute; and some writers 
hint that she countenanced it by her own example. 
‘*Tt soon became of such vogue at her courte,” at 
all events, ‘‘ that some of the great ladies, as well 
as noblemen therein, would not scruple to blow a 
pipe sociably;” and if it were usual for the ladies to 
smoke, we may readily imagine how much more it 
must have been so for the men. In one of Lord 
Somer’s Tracts, entitled ‘‘ A pleasante invective 
against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesuits, and such like 
catterpillars of the Commonwealth,” the practice of 
ladies smoking is also hinted at; and Mr, William 
Prynne, in his famous Histriomastrix, mentions, that 
among the refreshments offered to ladies in bis own 
time, ‘‘it was not uncommon to offer them the to- 
bacco-pipe.” But the successor of Elizabeth found 
cause to be fully more zealous in denouncing tobacco 
than she had been in praising it; and the increase of 
the consumption of this article during her reign, was 
only equalled by its decrease during his. His famous 
‘* Counterblast to Tobacco” is not more a literary 
curiosity than a monument of his indignant abhor- 
rence of the odious weed; and a preamble to an act 
of parliament, passed in 1604, for raising the impor- 
tation duty upon it from 2d. to 6s. 8d. per pound re- 
veals some mighty public reasons for his opposition 
to it, and shows how soon and dreadfully it began to 
desolate its victims. ‘‘ Whereas tobacco,” says 
that document, ‘‘ being excessively taken by a num- 
ber of ryotous and disorderly persons of meane con- 
dition, whoe, contrarie to the use which persones of 
good qualitie do make thereof, do spend most of their 
time in that evile vanitie, to the evile example and 
corrupting of others, and also consume that wages 
which many of them get by their labour, and where- 
with their families should be relieved, not caring at 
what pryce they buy that drugge, but rather divis- 
ing how to add to it other mixtures, thereby to make 
it the more delightful to the taste, though so much 
the more costlie to their purses; by which great and 
immoderate taking of tobacco, the health of a great 
number of the people is impayred, and their bodies 
weakened and made unfit for labour, and the estates 
of many mean persons so decayed and consumed, as 
they are thereby driven to unthriftie shifts onlie to 
meynteyn their gluttonous exercise thereof; besides, 
that also a great part of the treasure of the lande is 
consumed by this only drugge so licentiously abused 
by the meaner sorte; all which enormous inconve- 
niences ensuing therefrom, we do well perceive to 
proceed principally from the great quantity of to- 
