King James I in his famous "Counter-blaste to Tobacco," hinted that the husband, by his indulgence in the habit, might "reduce thereby his delicate, wholesome, and cleane complexioned wife to that extremitie, that either shee must also corrupt her sweete breath therewith, or else resolve to live in a perpetuall stinking torment." His Majesty's style was forcible, if not elegant. There are also one or two references in the early dramatists. In Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour," for instance, which was first acted in 1598, six years before King James blew his royal "Counter-blaste," Cob, the water-bearer, says that he would have any "man or woman that should but deal with a tobacco-pipe," immediately whipped. Prynne, in his attack on the stage, declared that women smoked pipes in theatres; but the truth of this statement may well be doubted. The habit was probably far from general among women, although Joshua Sylvester, a doughty opponent of the weed, was pleased to declare that "Fooles of all Sexes haunt it," i.e. tobacco.
The ballads of the period abound in rough woodcuts in which tavern scenes are often figured, wherein pewter pots and tobacco-pipes are shown lying on the table or in the hands or at the mouths of the male carousers. Men and women are figured together, but it would be very hard to find a woman in one of these rough cuts with a pipe in her hand or at her mouth. An example, in the "Shirburn Ballads" lies before me. The cut, which is very rough, heads a bacchanalian ballad characteristic of the Elizabethan period, called "A Knotte of Good Fellows," and beginning:
Come hither, mine host, come hither!
Come hither, mine host, come hither!
I pray thee, mine host,
Give us a pot and a tost,
And let us drinke all together.
The scene is a tavern interior. Around the table are four men and a woman, while a boy approaches carrying two huge measures of ale. One man is smoking furiously, while on the table lie three other pipes—one for each man—and sundry pots and glasses. The woman is plainly a convivial soul; but there is no pipe for her, and such provision was no doubt unusual.
There is direct evidence, too, besides the story in the first paragraph of this chapter, that women disliked the prevalence of smoking. In Marston's "Antonio and Mellinda," 1602, Rosaline, when asked by her uncle when she will marry, makes the spirited reply—"Faith, kind uncle, when men abandon jealousy, forsake taking of tobacco, and cease to wear their beards so rudely long. Oh, to have a husband with a mouth continually smoking, with a bush of furs on the ridge of his chin, readie still to flop into his foaming chops, 'tis more than most intolerable;" and similar indications of dislike to smoking could be quoted from other plays.
On the other hand, it is certain that from comparatively early in the seventeenth century there were to be found here and there women who smoked.
On the title-page of Middleton's comedy, "The Roaring Girle," 1611, is a picture of the heroine, Moll Cutpurse, in man's apparel, smoking a pipe, from which a great cloud of smoke is issuing.
In the record of an early libel action brought in the court of the Archdeacon of Essex, some domestic scenes of 1621 are vividly represented. We need not trouble about the libel action, but two of the dramatis personæ were a certain George Thresher, who sold beer and tobacco at his "shopp in Romford," and a good friend and customer of his named Elizabeth Savage, who, sad to say, was described as much given to "stronge drincke and tobacco." In the course of the trial, on June 8, 1621, Mistress Savage had to tell her tale, part of which is reported as follows:
"George Thresher kept a shoppe in Romford and sold tobacco there. She came divers tymes to his shoppe to buy tobacco there; and sometimes, with company of her acquaintance, did take tobacco and drincke beere in the hall of George Thresher's house, sometimes with the said George, and sometimes with his father and his brothers. And sometimes shee hath had a joint of meat and a cople of chickens dressed there; and shee, and they, and some other of her freinds, have dined there together, and paid their share for their dinner, shee being many times more willing to dine there than at an inne or taverne."
Elizabeth was evidently of a sociable turn, and though she turned her nose up at a tavern, there seems to have been little difference between these festive dinners at Mr. Thresher's "shopp," where Mistress Savage indulged her taste for ale and tobacco, and similar pleasures at an inn or tavern.