The Social History of Smoking

by George Latimer Apperson

It has been already stated that the Elizabethan gallant was acquainted with the most fashionable methods of inhaling and exhaling the smoke of tobacco. A singular feature of the enthusiasm for tobacco in the early years of the seventeenth century was the existence of professors of the art of smoking.

Some of the apothecaries whose shops were in most repute for the quality of the tobacco kept, took pupils and taught them the "slights," as tricks with the pipe were called. These included exhaling the smoke in little globes, rings and so forth. The invaluable Ben Jonson, in the preliminary account of the characters in his "Every Man out of his Humour," 1600, describes one Sogliardo as "an essential clown ... yet so enamoured of the name of a gentleman that he will have it though he buys it. He comes up every term to learn to take tobacco and see new motions." Sogliardo was accustomed to hire a private room to practise in. The fashionable way was to expel the smoke through the nose. In a play by Field of 1618, a foolish nobleman is asked by some boon companions in a tavern: "Will your lordship take any tobacco?" when another sneers, "'Sheart! he cannot put it through his nose!" His lordship was apparently not well versed in the "slights."

Taking tobacco was clearly an accomplishment to be studied seriously. Shift, a professor of the art in Jonson's play, puts up a bill in St. Paul's—the recognized centre for advertisements and commercial business of every kind—in which he offers to teach any young gentleman newly come into his inheritance, who wishes to be as exactly qualified as the best of the ordinary-hunting gallants are—"to entertain the most gentlemanlike use of tobacco; as first, to give it the most exquisite perfume; then to know all the delicate sweet forms for the assumption of it; as also the rare corollary and practice of the Cuban ebolition, euripus and whiff, which he shall receive, or take in here at London, and evaporate at Uxbridge, or farther, if it please him."

Taking the whiff, it has been suggested, may have been either a swallowing of the smoke, or a retaining it in the throat for a given space of time; but what may be meant by the "Cuban ebolition" or the "euripus" is perhaps best left to the imagination. "Ebolition" is simply a variant of "ebullition," and "ebullition," as applied with burlesque intent to rapid smoking—the vapour bubbling rapidly from the pipe-bowl—is intelligible enough, but why Cuban? "Euripus" was the name, in ancient geography, of the channel between Eubœa (Negropont) and the mainland—a passage which was celebrated for the violence and uncertainty of its currents—and hence the name was occasionally applied by our older writers to any strait or sea-channel having like characteristics. The use of the word in connexion with tobacco may, like that of "ebolition," have some reference to furious smoking, but the meaning is not clear.

If one contemporary writer may be believed, some of these early smokers acquired the art of emitting the smoke through their ears, but a healthy scepticism is permissible here.

The accomplished Shift promises a would-be pupil in the art of taking tobacco that if he pleases to be a practitioner, he shall learn in a fortnight to "take it plausibly in any ordinary, theatre, or the Tiltyard, if need be, in the most popular assembly that is." The Tiltyard adjoined Whitehall Palace and was the frequent scene of sports in which Queen Elizabeth took the greatest delight. Here took place, not only tilting properly so called, but rope-walking performances, bear- and bull-baiting, dancing and other diversions which her Majesty held in high favour. Consequently the Tiltyard was constantly the scene of courtly gatherings; and if smoking were permitted on such occasions—as Shift's boasting promises would appear to indicate—then it may be reasonably inferred that Queen Elizabeth did not entertain the objections to the new practice that her successor, King James, set forth with such vehemence in his famous "Counterblaste to Tobacco." There is, however, no positive evidence one way or the other, to show what the attitude of the Virgin Queen towards tobacco really was. A tradition as to her smoking herself on one occasion is referred to in a subsequent chapter—that on "Smoking by Women."

Although tobacco was in such general use it yet had plenty of enemies. It was extravagantly abused and extravagantly praised. Robert Burton, of "Anatomy of Melancholy" fame, like many other writers of his time, was prepared to admit the medicinal value of the herb, though he detested the general habit of smoking. Tobacco was supposed in those days to be "good for" a surprising variety of ailments and diseases; but to explore that little section of popular medicine would be foreign to my purpose. Burton believed in tobacco as medicine; but with regard to habitual smoking he was a worthy follower of King James, the strength of whose language he sought to emulate and exceed when he denounced the common taking of tobacco "by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale"—as "a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul." No anti-tobacconist could wish for a more whole-hearted denunciation than that.

Thomas Dekker, to whose pictures of London social life at the opening of the seventeenth century we are so much indebted for information both with regard to smoking and in respect of many other matters of interest, was himself an enemy of tobacco. He politely refers to "that great Tobacconist, the Prince of Smoake and Darkness, Don Pluto"; and in another place addresses tobacco as "thou beggarly Monarche of Indians, and setter up of rotten-lungd chimney-sweepers," and proceeds in a like strain of abuse.

One of the most curious of the early publications on tobacco, in which an attempt is made to hold the balance fairly between the legitimate use and the "licentious" abuse of the herb, is Tobias Venner's tract with the long-winded title: "A Brief and Accurate Treatise concerning The taking of the Fume of Tobacco, Which very many, in these dayes doe too licenciously use. In which the immoderate, irregular, and unseasonable use thereof is reprehended, and the true nature and best manner of using it, perspicuously demonstrated." Venner described himself as a doctor of physic in Bath, and his tract was published in London in 1637. Venner says that tobacco is of "ineffable force" for the rapid healing of wounds, cuts, sores and so on, by external application, but thinks little of its use for any other purpose. Like others of his school, he attacks the "licentious Tobacconists [smokers] who spend and consume, not only their time, but also their health, wealth, and witts in taking of this loathsome and unsavorie fume." He admits the popularity of the herb, but expresses his own personal objection to the "detestable savour or smack that it leaveth behind upon the taking of it"; from which one is inclined to surmise that the doctor's first pipe was not an entire success. With an evident desire to be fair, Venner, notwithstanding his dislike of the "savour," refuses to condemn tobacco utterly, because of what he considers its valuable medicinal qualities, and he goes so far as to give "10 precepts in the use of" tobacco. The sixth is "that you drink not between the taking of the fumes, as our idle and smoakie Tobacconists are wont"—there must be no alliance, in short, between the pipe and the cheerful glass. The tenth and last precept is "that you goe not abroad into the aire presently [immediately] upon the taking of the fume, but rather refrain therefrom the space of halfe an houre, or more, especially if the season be cold, or moist." The suggestion that the smoker, when he has finished his pipe, shall wait for half an hour or so before he ventures into the outer air is very quaint.

Venner goes on to give a terrible catalogue of the ills that will befall the smoker who uses tobacco "contrary to the order and way I have set down." It is a dreadful list which may possibly have frightened a few nervous smokers; but probably it had no greater effect than the terrible curse in the "Jackdaw of Rheims."