I cannot trace the joke farther, but as Foote, though so rich in wit, was a great borrower, it might not be new in 1764.
H. B. C.
Garrick Club.
AN INTERPOLATION OF THE PLAYERS: TOBACCO.
I have witnessed the representation of the Twelfth Night as often, during the last five-and-forty years, as I have had an opportunity; and, in every instance, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and the Clown, in their rollicking orgies, smoke tobacco. Now, this must be an "interpolation of the players;" for not only was tobacco unknown in Illyria, at the period of the story, but Shakspeare does not once name tobacco in his works, and, therefore, was not likely to give a stage-direction for the use of it. The great poet is freely blamed for anachronisms; it is but fair he should have due credit when he avoids them. The stories of his plays are all antecedent to his own time, therefore he never mentions either the drinking of tobacco, or the tumultuous scenes of the ordinary which belonged to it, and which are so constantly met with in his cotemporary dramatists. I see there is a note in my commonplace-book, after some remarks upon Green's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, "that this play, though written by a pedant, and a Master of Arts, contains more anachronisms than any one play of Shakspeare's."
Can any of your correspondents learned in stage traditions say when this "smoking interpolation" was first made?
But, Sir, I think I shall surprise some of your readers by pointing out another instance of the absence of tobacco or smoking. In the Arabian Night's Entertainments, which are said to be such faithful pictures of oriental manners, there is no mention of the pipe. Neither is coffee to be met with in those tales, so delightful to all ages. We with difficulty imagine an oriental without his chibauk; and yet it is certain they knew nothing of this luxury before the sixteenth century. At present, such is the almost imperious necessity felt by the Turk for smoking and coffee, that as soon as the gun announces the setting of the sun, during the fast of the Ramada, before he thinks of satisfying his craving stomach with any solid food, he takes his cup of coffee and lights his pipe.—As I think it dishonest to deck ourselves with knowledge that is not self-acquired, I confess to the having but just read this "note" in the last number of the Revue des Deux Mondes, in a fine work upon America by the celebrated savant, M. Ampère.
W. Robson.