THE IMPORTANCE OF SMOKING AND SNUFF-TAKING, EXEMPLIFIED IN A GRAVE DISSERTATION, DEDICATED TO THE YOUTH OF THE RISING GENERATION.
| What soothes the peasant when his toil is done? He cheerly sits beside his cottage door, In the sweet light of ev’ning’s parting sun, His young ones sporting o’er the sanded floor:— What cheers the seaman, when the fight is won, And vict’ry smiles upon our naval band? Toiling no longer at the murd’rous gun, His thoughts are proudly of his native land. What charms the Turk, Greek, Frenchman, fop or sage, In this enlighten’d comfort-loving age; Since health, and pleasure’s cheerful reign began, But lov’d tobacco, sovereign friend of man?—M. S. |
“For the taking of fumes by pipes, as in tobacco and other things, to dry and comfort.”—Bacon.
“Bread or tobacco may be neglected: but reason at first recommends their trial, and custom makes them pleasant.”—Locke.
Hail! inspirers of the profoundest and the brightest things that have been said and done since the creation, and, in the strength and plenitude of our recollections of thy divine virtues, aid us to sing thy praises! What though there be those, who, in the whim, caprice or ignorance of thy merits, would run ye down in the plenitude of their prejudices—have ye not stood the test of time, that criterion of excellence? Are ye not, most sublime of pleasures, independent of your other numerous claims upon public and private favour—are ye not immortalized by the hallowed names of the great, the good, the wise, the witty and the learned, whose encomiums of your worth shall descend with you, through the future ages of unborn posterity.
What! shall it ever be said that the disaffected to the great public cause, the innovators upon common taste, shall be allowed to progress in their rash undertaking, of seeking to undervalue the importance of those gentle consolers through life, the snuff-box and pipe. Never! while there’s a Woodville—nay, even a Dhoodeen,[11] to smoke them to defiance, or a pinch of ‘high dried,’ to father a witty reply.
Much-injured and defrauded of habits—friends of past and present learning and genius—of every land and every clime—sought by rich, as well as poor, and alike soothing to the king as slave, how have ye not been calumniated by the weak and designing! As the poet saith, “Envy doth merit as its shade pursue,” and so is it with you. Oh that those standing highest in the popular favour—the ‘tried and trusty’—should ever be the objects of attack to the discontented!
Most delectable of companions! how many tender reminiscences and recollections are associated with you, from the last pipe of the murdered Raleigh in Newgate, to the dernier pinch of the equally unfortunate Louis XVI, ere they mounted scaffolds, it is hoped, for a better world. If we turn to the imagination, how many endearing recollections connected with our subject throng upon us, even from the once happy days of our boyhood, when in secret we pored over the pages of genius in preference to scholastic lore. Rise up before us, thou soul of philanthropy, and humorous eccentricity, my uncle Toby! with thy faithful and humble serviteur the corporal.[12] Methinks, indeed, we now see ye together in the little cottage parlour, lighted up by the cheerful fire, discoursing of past dangers and campaigns under the soothing influence of the narcotic weed, whose smoke, as it rises in fantastic curls from either pipe, harmonizes together like your kindred souls. And thou, too, poor monk,[13] offspring of the same pervading mind, yet picturing many a sad reality, must thou be forgotten, absorbed as thou art from all the grosser passions of our nature? Our memory paints thee, impelled by the courtesy of thy gentle nature, proffering thine humble box of horn, thy pale and intellectual face, so sensitive, half-shrinking from the fear of ‘pride’s rebuff:’ whilst thou thyself, from the sneers of the affluent, seekest consolation in—a pinch of snuff!