Such were, indeed, the tales in common circulation among the lower orders, and which Ben Jonson has very humorously put into the mouth of Cob in Every Man in his Humour:—"By Gods me," says the water-bearer, "I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco! It's good for nothing but to choak a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight; one of them, they say, will ne'er scape it; he voided a bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks, an' there were no wiser men than I, I'd have it present whipping, man or woman, that should but deal with a tobacco-pipe; why, it will stifle them all in the end, as many as use it; it's little better than ratsbane or rosaker."[136:C]
It would appear that the prejudices against the use of this narcotic required much time for their extirpation; for Burton, who wrote about thirty years after its introduction, and at the very close of the
Shakspearean era, seems as violent against the common use of tobacco as even James himself:—"A good vomit," says he, "I confesse, a vertuous herbe, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used, but as it is commonly used by most men, which take it as Tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischiefe, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish damn'd tobacco, the ruine and overthrow of body and soule."[137:A]
Notwithstanding this abuse, however, and the edicts of King James forbidding its consumption in all ale-houses, tobacco soon acquired such general favour, that Stowe tells us in his Annals, "it was commonly used by most men and many women;" and James, appealing to his subjects, exclaims,—"Now how you are by this custome disabled in your goods, let the gentry of this land beare witnesse, some of them bestowing three, some foure hundred pounds a yeere upon this precious stinke[137:B];" a sum so enormous, that we must conclude them to have been as determined smokers as the Buckinghamshire parson recorded by Lilly, who "was so given over to tobacco and drink, that when he had no tobacco, he would cut the bell-ropes and smoke them!"[137:C]
Snuff-taking was as much in fashion as smoking; and the following passage from Decker proves, that the gallants of his day were as extravagant and ridiculous in their use of it as our modern beaux, whether we regard the splendour of their boxes, or their affectation in applying the contents; it appears also to have been customary to take snuff immediately before dinner. "Before the meat come smoking to the board, our gallant must draw out his tobacco-box, 'and' the ladle for the cold snuff into the nostril,—all which artillery may be of gold or silver, if he can reach to the price of it;—then let him shew his several tricks in taking it, as the whiff, the ring, &c. for these are complements that gain gentlemen no mean respect."[137:D] "It
is singular," remarks Dr. Nott, alluding to the general use of tobacco at this period, "when the introduction of this new indulgence had so engaged the pen of almost every cotemporary playwright and pamphleteer, nay, even of royalty itself, that Shakspeare should have been totally silent upon it."[138:A]
The residue of the Domestic Economy of this era may be included under the articles of servants and miscellaneous household arrangements.
In the days of Elizabeth servants were more numerous, and considered as a more essential mark of gentility, than at any subsequent period. "The English," observes Hentzner, "are lovers of shew, liking to be followed wherever they go by whole troops of servants, who wear their master's arms in silver, fastened to their left arms."[138:B] They were, also, usually distinguished by blue coats; thus Grumio, enquiring for his master's servants, says,—"Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the rest; let their heads be sleekly combed, their blue coats brushed."[138:C] We learn, however, from Fynes Moryson, that both silver badges and blue coats went out of fashion in the reign of James the First; "the servants of gentlemen," he informs us, "were wont to weare blew coates, with their master's badge of silver on the left sleeve, but now they most commonly weare clokes garded with lace, all the servants of one family wearing the same livery for colour and ornament."[138:D]
The very strict regulations to which servants were subjected in the sixteenth century, and the admirable order preserved in the household of the upper classes at that time, will be illustrated in a very satisfactory and entertaining manner, by the "Orders for Household Servantes; first devised by John Haryngton, in the yeare 1566, and renewed by John Haryngton, Sonne of the saide John, in
the yeare 1592: the saide John, the Sonne, being then High Shrieve of the County of Somerset."