My pipe—before that æmulèd of many—
And played thereon (for well that skill he conned):
Himself as skilful in that art as any.
He piped, I sung; and when he sung, I piped;
By change of turns each making other merry;
Neither envying other nor envied,
So piped we, until we both were weary.
‘Thus, O Jupiter, and you my fellow-denizens of Elysium, would we hold sweet communion of soul. And then it was I learnt of the right noble and valorous knight, the exceeding comfort of the “soverane weed,” which the elements in aforetime had formed for the solace of men and gods; for nothing loth am I to say that I drew from the pipe a foretaste of the peaceful joys of the blessed, and therefore did I recognise in the divine herb a gift from heaven, treasured up for mortals in Nature’s bounteous store. It seemeth, however, that the immortal powers swayed by imperious Juno had disowned the Virginian nymph and had lost the healing balm she breathes upon the chafed and fretful; yet, methinks, even Juno might find a piquant pleasure in a few whiffs of the weed.
‘But if Raleigh denies himself the renown of being the first to bring the Indian’s herb to his native country, he can fairly lay claim to the pleasure of having first planted it in Ireland. When he was Mayor of Youghall, and his abode the manor-house, he smoked his first pipe of tobacco in his garden, sheltered by the spreading branches of four yew trees that still may be seen forming a thatch-like covering for a summer-house. And in this Youghall garden he planted Ireland’s first instalment of the Indian weed. Ever foremost among the high-souled and adventurous, he neglected not other like humble things that he thought would be of service to his fellow-creatures, for here, too, he planted and cultivated Ireland’s greatest blessing, the potato, which fostered by prudence, rapidly gave to that wild and lawless land an abundance of food for the impoverished peasantry. He planted likewise, the affane cherry, and the sweetly perfumed wall-flower, which he had brought from the Azores, and which may still be seen growing on the banks of the Blackwater.
‘Much doubting me if aught I have said can profit this goodly company, I will call upon one who has seen the plant in its native soil and can describe its uses among the Indians. For the herb, which is commonly called tobacco, hath many names and divers virtues.’ Then rose before the recumbent throng, the historian of England’s first colony in the New World, Thomas Harriot, mathematician and astronomer. He began:—