There are to be met with nearer home, those who are inveterate against its use, and who willingly join with Cowper in denouncing the
“Pernicious weed which banishes for hours,
That sex whose presence civilizes ours.”
An occasional pamphlet or letter, makes its way into the hands of speculative publishers or into class papers, giving gratuitous advice, and much denunciatory language, against a habit which is by far too general, and has been tested by too many experiments not to be well known, and equally well understood. These “counterblasts” differ but little from the model one which each would seem to aim at imitating—the quaint expressions, the only redeeming quality in the original, alone being wanting.
“Surely,” saith the high and mightie Prince James, “smoke becomes a kitchen farre better than a dining chamber; and yet it makes a kitchen oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soyling and infecting them with an unctuous and oyly kind of soote, as hath been found in some great tobacco takers, that after their death were opened. Now, my good countrymen, let us (I pray you), consider what honour or policie can move us to imitate the barbarous and beastlie manners of the wild, godlesse, and slavish Indians, especially in so vile and filthy a custome. Shall we, that disdain to imitate the manner of our neighbour, France (having the style of the greate Christian kingdome), and that cannot endure the spirit of the Spaniards, (their king being now comparable in largenesse of dominions to the greatest Emperor of Turkey), shall we, I say, that have been so long civill and wealthy in peace, famous and invincible in war, fortunate in both—we that have been ever able to aid any of our neighbours (but never deafened any of their ears with any of our supplications for assistance), shall we, I say, without blushing, abase ourselves so far as to imitate these beastlie Indians, slaves to the Spaniards, the refuse of the worlde, and, as yet, aliens from the holy covenant of God? Why do we not as well imitate them in walking naked as they do, in preferring glasses, feathers, and toys, to gold and precious stones, as they do? Yea, why do we not deny God, and adore the devils, as they do? Have you not, then, reasons to forbear this filthie noveltie, so basely grounded, so foolishly received, and so grosslie mistaken in the right use thereof? In your abuse thereof, sinning against God, harming yourselves both in person and goods, and raking also, thereby, the marks and notes of vanitie upon you, by the custom thereof, making yourselves to be wondered at by all forreine civill nations, and by all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned; a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmfull to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and, in the blacke stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomless.”
Wise and worthy king, adieu. Gold stick, lead the way. We hasten from your royal presence to join the Cabinet of Cloudland.Vive la Virginie!
[CHAPTER IV.]
THE CABINET OF CLOUDLAND.
“A magnificent array of clouds;
And as the breeze plays on them, they assume