"Tarlton as other gentlemen used, at the first coming up of tobacco, did take it more for fashion's sake than otherwise, and being in a roome, sat betweene two men overcome with wine, and they never seeing the like, wondered at it, and seeing the vapour come out of Tarlton's nose, cryed out, 'Fire, fire!' and threw a cup of wine in Tarlton's face. 'Make no more stirre,' quoth Tarlton, 'the fire is quenched; if the sheriffs come, it will turne a fine as the custom is.' And drinking that againe, 'Fie,' says the other: 'what a stinke it makes. I am almost poysoned.' 'If it offend,' quoth Tarlton, 'let's every one take a little of the smell, and so the savor, will quickly go;' but tobacco whiffes made them leave him to pay all."
Rich gives the following account of a similar scene:—
"I remember a pretty jest of tobacco which was this: A certain Welchman coming newly to London, and beholding one to take tobacco, never seeing the like before, and not knowing the manner of it, but perceiving him vent smoke so fast, and supposing his inward parts to be on fire, cried out, 'O Jhesu, Jhesu man, for the passion of Cod hold, for by Cod's splud ty snowt's on fire,' and having a bowle of beere in his hand, threw it at the other's face, to quench his smoking nose."
The following anecdote is equally ludicrous. Before tobacco was much known in Germany, some soldiers belonging to a cavalry regiment were quartered in a German village. One of them, a trumpeter, happened to be a negro. A peasant, who had never seen a black man before, and who knew nothing about tobacco, watched, though at a safe distance, the trumpeter, while the latter groomed and fed his horse. As soon as this business was dispatched, the negro filled his pipe and began to smoke it. Great had been the peasant's bewilderment before; great was his terror now. The terror reached an intolerable point when the negro took the pipe from his mouth, offered it to the peasant, and asked him, in the best language he could command, to take a whiff. "No, no!" cried the peasant, in exceeding alarm; "no, no! Mr. Devil; I do not wish to eat fire."
Henry Fielding, in "The Grub Street Opera" written about a century ago, has the following verses on Tobacco:—
"Let the learned talk of books,
The glutton of cooks,
The lover of Celia's soft smack—O!
No mortal can boast
So noble a toast,
As a pipe of accepted tobacco.
"Let the soldier for fame,
And a general's name,
In battle get many a thwack—O!
Let who will have most
Who will rule the rooste,
Give me but a pipe of tobacco.
"Tobacco gives wit
To the dullest old cit,
And makes him of politics crack—O!
The lawyers i' th' hall
Were not able to bawl,
Were it not for a whiff of tobacco.
"The man whose chief glory
Is telling a story,
Had never arrived at the smack—O!
Between every heying,
And as I was saying,
Did he not take a whiff of tobacco.
"The doctor who places
Much skill in grimaces,
And feels your pulse running tic tack—O!
Would you know his chief skill?
It is only to fill
And smoke a good pipe of tobacco.