In danger daylie of some greater broyle.
My Lord, this sacred herbe which never offendit,
Is forced to crave your favour to defend it.
The author’s exalted idea about the great value of the weed was a reflex of the Indian’s belief in its all-healing properties, a notion which through the Spaniards and Portuguese had become the common property of Europe. This is the animating thought running through the work. He has set his heart upon curing suffering humanity of every malady, and he complacently likens himself to Hercules going out into the world to wage war on disease and corruption. ‘I have armed myself with a box for his bag,’ says the learned doctor, ‘and a pipe for his club; a box to conserve my tobacco, and a pipe to use it.’ He foresees a time coming when the medicinal virtues of the herb will be so well understood that the services of physicians may be dispensed with, particularly in cases of defluxion and catarrh. Warming to his work and holding up the native home of the plant to be a ‘Country which God hath honoured and blessed with this holy herbe,’ he flourishes his club defiantly in the face of ‘the unlearned leiches’ who dare to say evil things about Nicotiana; ‘God willing,’ he means to ‘overcome many maladies.’ In practical work, however, though equally earnest, he is a long way behind his contemporary, Dr. Gardiner, whose Trial of Tobacco has already been noticed.
By the middle of the seventeenth century, tobacco-smoking had become a confirmed habit even in remote rural districts, and was duly recognised and provided for by every housewife. Monsieur Jorevin de Rochefort in his travels in England (1672) tells a homely story of his sitting down to supper with a friend in Worcester, where, on the meal being finished, they set on the table half a dozen pipes and a packet of tobacco for smoking. On inquiry he was told that it was a common practice to smoke after supper, indulged in by both men and women, who said that without tobacco one cannot live in England, for the smoke dissipates the evil humours of the brain. He goes on to relate his further experience on the next day, saying:
‘Whilst we were walking about the town he asked me if it was the custom in France, as in England, for children on setting out for school to carry in their satchel along with their books a pipe of tobacco, which their mother had taken care to fill early in the morning, in the belief that it would serve them instead of breakfast.’ Surely our French friend was grossly imposed upon. No English mother would for a moment entertain such a notion. We are next told that at the accustomed hour every one laid aside his book to light his pipe; and that the master smoked with them and taught the youngsters how to hold their pipes and draw in the tobacco-smoke; thus using them to the habit from youth, believing it absolutely necessary for health’s sake. The story told him by his Worcester friend put him in mind of a Spaniard whom he had met at the seaport of Calabria. The man, not being able to procure tobacco, cut off a piece of the cable with which he filled his pipe and drew down the smoke thereof as if it were the precious weed. He speaks, also, of an Irishman who falling ill was not allowed his usual pipe of tobacco. He submitted for some time, but he became so low and so melancholy that he could take nothing but a little tobacco, which was at last permitted him, with the result that in a short time he recovered perfect health. ‘I have known,’ says Rochefort, ‘several persons who, not content with smoking in the day, went to bed with their pipes in their mouths. Others who have risen in the night to take tobacco with as much pleasure as they would have received in drinking Alicant or Greek wine.’ Profligate smokers such as these deserve no encouragement or sympathy; they rank in the class of the besotted.
Rarely do we meet with more sympathetic words in favour of the weed than in Mission’s Memories of Travels over England, which he published in 1697. Tobacco-smoking, he says, was commonly practised both by men and women, particularly in country places. His observations led him to remark that smoking makes the generality of Englishmen taciturn, thoughtful, and, alas, melancholy; he adds that the use of tobacco ‘not only breeds profound theologists, but also begets moral philosophers.’ And in a sonnet, which bears some resemblance to the verses of George Wither, he shows us that he had himself imbibed something of the melancholy and philosophic spirit he speaks of. The lines run as follows:
Sweet smoking pipe; bright glowing stove,
Companion still of my retreat,
Thou dost my gloomy thoughts remove,