This whether yt divine Tobacco were,
Or Panachaea, or Polygony,
Shee fownd, and brought it to her patient deare
Who al this while lay bleding out his hart-blood neare."
The Faerie Queen, III. v. 32.
1597.—"His Lordship" (E. of Essex at Villafranca) "made no answer, but called for tobacco, seeming to give but small credit to this alarm; and so on horseback, with these noblemen and gentlemen on foot beside him, took tobacco, whilst I was telling his Lordship of the men I had sent forth, and the order I had given them. Within some quarter of an hour, we might hear a good round volley of shot betwixt the 30 men I had sent to the chapel, and the enemy, which made his Lordship cast his pipe from him, and listen to the shooting."—Commentaries of Sir Francis Vere, p. 62.
1598.—"Cob. Ods me I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco. It is good for nothing but to choke 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 never scape it; he voided a bushel of soot yesterday upward and downward ... its little better than rats-bane or rosaker."—Every Man in his Humour, iii. 2.
1604.—"Oct. 19. Demise to Tho. Lane and Ph. Bold of the new Impost of 6s. 8d., and the old Custom of 2d. per pound on tobacco."—Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, James I., p. 159.
1604 or 1605.—"In Bijápúr I had found some tobacco. Never having seen the like in India, I brought some with me, and prepared a handsome pipe of jewel work.... His Majesty (Akbar) was enjoying himself after receiving my presents, and asking me how I had collected so many strange things in so short a time, when his eye fell upon the tray with the pipe and its appurtenances: he expressed great surprise and examined the tobacco, which was made up in pipefuls; he inquired what it was, and where I had got it. The Nawab Khán-i-'Azam replied: 'This is tobacco, which is well known in Mecca and Medina, and this doctor has brought it as a medicine for your Majesty.' His Majesty looked at it, and ordered me to prepare and take him a pipeful. He began to smoke it, when his physician approached and forbade his doing so" ... (omitting much that is curious). "As I had brought a large supply of tobacco and pipes, I sent some to several of the nobles, while others sent to ask for some; indeed all, without exception, wanted some, and the practice was introduced. After that the merchants began to sell it, so the custom of smoking spread rapidly."—Asad Beg, in Elliot, vi. 165-167.
1610.—"The Turkes are also incredible takers of Opium ... carrying it about with them both in peace and in warre; which they say expelleth all feare, and makes them couragious; but I rather think giddy headed.... And perhaps for the self same cause they also delight in Tobacco; they take it through reeds that have ioyned vnto them great heads of wood to containe it: I doubt not but lately taught them, as brought them by the English: and were it not sometimes lookt into (for Morat Bassa not long since commanded a pipe to be thrust through the nose of a Turke, and so to be led in derision through the Citie,) no question but it would prove a principall commodity. Neverthelesse they will take it in corners, and are so ignorant therein, that that which in England is not saleable, doth passe here amongst them for most excellent."—Sandys, Journey, 66.