PARTAKING OF THE PUNGENT PINCH.
She was much addicted to the use of snuff, more especially towards the closing years of her life, and to the last she was famous for her singular sprightliness in conversation. Dr. Deering wrote, about the end of the first half of the eighteenth century, a history of Nottingham, and in it he relates how ladies, enjoying their tea, between each dish regaled their nostrils with a pinch or two of snuff. The snuff-boxes carried by them were usually costly, and generally elegant in form. David Garrick gave his wife a gold snuff-box. George Barrington, the celebrated pickpocket and author, stole from Prince Orloff a snuff-box, set with brilliants, valued at £30,000. Barrington was transported to Botany Bay, and at the opening of Sydney Theatre, January 16, 1796, Young’s tragedy, The Revenge, was performed by convicts, and a prologue from Barrington’s pen contained this passage:—
“From distant climes, o’er widespread seas, we come,
Though not with much éclat, or beat of drum;
True patriots we, for, be it understood,
We left our country for our country’s good.
No private views disgraced our generous zeal,
What urged our travels was our country’s weal;
And none will doubt but that our emigration
Has proved most useful to the British nation.”
In the olden time it was customary for the English Court to present to an Ambassador on his return home a gold snuff-box, and only in late years has this practice been discontinued. George IV. made a fraudulent display of snuff-taking; he carried an empty box, and pretended to draw from it pinches and apply them to his nose. The great Napoleon could not endure smoking, but filled his waistcoat pocket with snuff, and partook of prodigious quantities. Nelson enjoyed his snuff, and his snuff-box finds a place among his relics at Greenwich. Literary men and dramatists figure in imposing numbers amongst snuff-takers. Dryden enjoyed snuff, and did not object to share the luxury with others. A favourite haunt of his was Will’s Coffee-house in Bow Street, Covent Garden, where he was met by the chief wits of the time. In the “London Spy,” by Ned Wright, it is related that a parcel of raw, second-rate beaux and wits were conceited if they had but the honour to dip a finger and thumb into Mr. Dryden’s snuff-box. Addison, Bolingbroke, Congreve, Swift, and Pope were snuff-takers. Dr. Samuel Johnson carried large supplies in his waistcoat pocket, and his friend Boswell thus praised it:—
“Oh snuff! our fashionable end and aim!
Strasburg, Rappee, Dutch, Scotch,
Whate’er thy name;
Powder celestial! quintescence divine!
New joys entrance my soul while thou art mine.”
Arkbuckle, another Scottish poet, author of many humorous and witty poems, wrote in 1719 as follows:—
“Blest be his shade, may laurels ever bloom,
And breathing sweets exhale around his tomb,
Whose penetrating nostril taught mankind
First how by snuff to rouse the sleeping mind.”
The following lines are by Robert Leighton, a modern Scotch poet of recognised ability:—