And so he continued to the very last. He had a horror of sealing his insane notes with a wafer; he babbled of primrose-colored gloves, eau-de-Cologne, and oil for his wigs, and patent-blacking for his boots.
But at last he died. Some charitable Englishman tried to get him into a private asylum, but no such institution would receive him. This good Samaritan was obliged to pay a person to be with him night and day; but still he, the refined, the recherché Beau Brummell, the "glass of fashion and the mould of form," the "observed of all observers," the companion and pet of royalty and the nobility, could not even be kept clean. He drew his last breath upon a straw mattress, rising occasionally from his humble pallet to welcome an imaginary prince, or noble earl, or stately duchess, to his wretched apartment, with no diminution of his mocking grace and studied courtesy of manner. Dandled, dreaded, deserted, doomed, demented, dying dandy!
"Many men of many minds," is a proverb somewhat musty, as many a youngster learning to write can bear witness; and for and against the "use of the weed" it is perhaps more applicable than to any one thing else. Many a reader of the "Drawer" will take a high-flavored Havana between his lips, press and draw it satisfactorily, while he peruses the following—while many a staid matron and careful housekeeper will regard the lines with great favor; bearing in mind all the time the smell of tobacco-smoke in the curtains, and in the clothes of their husbands, or their husbands' friends. But whether for or against, read
THE DISGUSTED WIFE TO HER HUSBAND.
"You promised to leave off your smoking,
The day I consented to wed;
How little I thought you were joking,
How fondly believed what you said!
Then alas! how completely you sold me,
With blandishments artful and vain;
When you emptied your snuff-box, and told me
You never would fill it again!
"Those fumes so oppressive from puffing,
Say, what is the solace that flows?
And whence the enjoyment of stuffing
A parcel of dust in your nose?
By the habits you thus are pursuing,
There can be no pleasure conferred,
How irrational, then, is so doing—
Now, isn't it very absurd?
"Cigars come to threepence each, nearly,
And sixpence an ounce is your snuff;
Consider how much, then, you yearly
Must waste on that horrible stuff!
Why the sums in tobacco you spend, love,
The wealth in your snuff-box you sink,
Would procure me of dresses no end, love,
And keep me in gloves—only think!
"What's worse, for your person I tremble—
'Tis going as fast as it can;
Oh! how should you like to resemble
A smoky and snuffy old man?
Then resign, at the call of affection,
The habits I can not endure;
Or you'll spoil both your nose and complexion,
And ruin your teeth, I am sure!"
Whatever may be said of smoking, it must be admitted to have been the cause of much pleasant writing; nor has it failed to be turned to profitable instruction in verse; as witness the lines on a pipe: