That it was known in France, some years previous to its being carried into England, from the above accounts handed down to us, we cannot doubt. The French history of the importation of the plant into their country, attributes it to Jean Nicot of Nismes, who was their ambassador at the court of Lisbon in the reign of Francis II. Some of the seed, we are informed, was given him by a Dutchman, who had brought it with him from Florida. This, we imagine, must have been shortly after it had begun to regain notice in Spain.
Impressed with the current account of its properties as a medicine and luxurious stimulant, he sent a portion of it home, where it arrived, and under high court patronage soon became popular.
In England—and we shall now proceed to note our own accounts of the subject,—the first importer is very commonly thought to have been Sir Walter Raleigh, who is said to have brought it from Virginia in 1586—a period when the tobacco plant was known throughout nearly the whole of Europe, while whole fields of it were cultivated for commerce in Spain and Portugal. If it is to be attributed to an Englishman, few possess a better claim to the honor than Sir Francis Drake, as he had made several voyages to the New World in 1570-2-7, ere Raleigh had undertaken his first. This idea is exactly in accordance, too, with the dates furnished us by Lobel, Linnæus and Humboldt. Independent of this strong circumstantial evidence, Bomare[2] and Camden[3] both attribute its first appearance to him,—authority not to be disputed for a moment.
That Sir Walter was the first distinguished individual that set the fashion of smoking, we have recorded, although this, we are again told, was taught him by the notorious Ralph Lane, whose adventure, we have a page or too back slightly touched upon. Lane had himself learnt the habit, from the Virginians, and having brought several of their pipes home with him, communicated it to Raleigh, who indulged in it greatly, as a pleasant pastime. It was during one of his pleasing reveries under the soothing influence of the pipe, that the well-known anecdote is said to have occurred of a lacquey drenching him with water, supposing from the smoke he saw issuing from his nose and mouth that he was internally on fire. To such a degree, indeed, did he adopt and set the fashion of smoking, that he was frequently in the habit of giving entertainments to his friends, in which the fare consisted of pipes of tobacco, and ale seasoned with nutmegs—a somewhat curious origin of smoking-parties, or divans, in England. The result was, the example of a man so justly celebrated and popular was soon imitated by the court, and in the course of years gradually became common among the lower orders of people.
Elizabeth, notwithstanding her strong and powerful mind, possessed the sex’s natural vanity and love of novelty to a great degree, and would seem to have very warmly patronized the custom; some writers of the period have gone as far as to affirm, in her own person. We are further borne out in this statement by the authority of the Biographia Britannica, that the ladies of the court indulged in smoking the fragrant herb, as well as the noblemen and gentle men. That the queen therefore set a personal example, is by no means so strange. What a striking contrast does this afford, in regard to the taste expressed by the sex in the present day towards tobacco!
In reference to the nomenclature of the tobacco plant, like that of most things handed down to posterity, it admits of many versions. As we have previously observed in America, it was termed among the natives, petun and yoli, besides other barbarous names, probably each appellation peculiar to a different tribe. On the appearance of the plant in England, it received the name it is still recognized by, namely, Tobacco. This word, by some writers, is supposed to have had its derivation from Tobago in the West Indies, while others assert it is derived from Tobaco, a different place altogether; which latter, from its closer approximation to the word tobacco, we cannot but imagine correct. In botany it is more particularly known under the scientific appellation of Herba Nicotiana, so named on its introduction into France, in compliment to her ambassador, Jean Nicot of Nismes, from whom it was received. It was also well known under the imposing titles of Herba Reginæ Catharinæ Medicæ, and Herba Reginæ: the first given in honor of the queen, and the latter of a grand prior of the house of Lorraine, both of whom were the first receivers of the plant, and fostered it on account of the many virtues it was supposed to be possessed of in pharmacy. In different countries its names were various. In Italy at that time it was called St. Crucis, taken from St. Croix, an apostolic legate who brought it into the country, somewhere in the middle of the 16th century. The Dutch call it Taboc, or Taboco, indifferently. Some of the German writers describe it under the name of the Holy or the Indian Healing Herb—Heilig wundkraut, or Indianisch wundkraut. In most other countries Tobac or Tabac prevails.
Notwithstanding the extreme popularity that attended the introduction of the plant generally throughout Europe, there were not wanting those sovereigns who testified an antipathy at first to the tobacco plant, little short of that, for which king James was afterwards remarkable—of whom we shall have occasion to speak anon.
Amurath the Fourth forbade its introduction in any form whatever within his dominions under very severe penalties. The Czar of Muscovy and the king of Persia issued edicts of a similar nature, while Pope Urban the Eighth made a bull to excommunicate all those who took tobacco into churches.