Smoke Rings and Roundelays - Pipes and Tobacco

IN THE BEGINNING

THE LOST LOTUS.

’TIS said that in the sun-embroidered East,

There dwelt a race whose softly flowing hours

Passed like the vision of a royal feast,

By Nero given in the Baian bowers;

Thanks to the lotus-blossom spell,

Their lives were one long miracle.

In after years the passing sons of men

Looked for these lotus blossoms all in vain,

Through every hillside, through each glade and glen,

And e’en throughout the isles of many a main;

Yet through the centuries some doom

Forbade them see the lotus bloom.

The Old World wearied of the long pursuit,

And called the sacred leaf a poet’s theme,

When lo! the New World, rich in flower and fruit,

Revealed the lotus, lovelier than the dream

That races of the long past days did haunt,—

The green-leaved, amber-tipped tobacco plant.

ANON.

THE GREAT DISCOVERY.

IT was the first week of November, 1492, that Europeans first noted the Indian custom of tobacco-smoking. The two sailors sent by Columbus to explore Cuba returned to the ships of their great commander, and told this among other things new and strange. They found the natives carried with them a light firebrand and puffed smoke from their mouths and noses; this their European notions led them to conclude was some mode of perfuming themselves. A more intimate acquaintance with the natives taught them that it was certain leaves of a herb rolled up in the dry leaves of the maize or Indian corn that they thus burned and inhaled the smoke of. It was a novelty to the Spaniards, but it was an ancient and familiar custom with the natives. The aborigines of Central America rolled up the tobacco leaf, and dreamed away their lives in smoky reveries, ages before Columbus was born, or the colonists of Sir Walter Raleigh brought it within the precincts of the Elizabethan Court.

The history of the origin of popular customs is generally involved in obscurity; it is the natural results of that very popularity which seem to render the office of historian unnecessary. Tradition thus occupies the place of the written chronicle, and when the latter has to be compiled, many facts have been lost or distorted. It is thus that the European use of Tobacco has been descanted on by various writers, some of whom, not content with doubting the persons who are popularly thought to have introduced it in the sixteenth century, have asserted its use in the East as an historic fact some centuries before the discovery of America. It is certain that the fumes of plants were used in medicine from a very early period; but the wild assertions deduced therefrom as to the early custom of tobacco-smoking in the Old World, can only be classed among the curiosities of literature, inasmuch as no one of these writers has attempted to explain the extraordinary fact of the total silence of all persons as to the custom in Europe, either in ancient or modern times. It is, in fact, not till long after its European advent, in comparatively modern times, that we meet with these assertions and conjectures, which presuppose the monstrous improbability that the world had smoked on unwittingly for some three thousand years, and then accepted the weed from the aborigines of America as a new gift!

The proper name of the herb is also a subject of discussion, but the weight of evidence is certainly not in favour of the present one so extensively adopted in Europe. The name tabaco certainly appears, from the testimony of the oldest authors, to be that applied to the tube used by the Indians to inhale the smoke; and that the plant itself bore the name of yoli, petun, piecelt, or cohiba, according to the varied language of the different tribes who inhabited the great continent.

About 1560 is the date generally awarded to the introduction of Tobacco to Europe, and a Spanish physician, Francesco Hernandez, is believed to have brought some plants to Spain for the inspection of his Most Catholic Majesty Philip the Second, who had commissioned him to visit Mexico and note its natural productions. Almost at the same period France and Italy were made acquainted therewith, chiefly by the aid of members of the church. Jean Nicot, Lord of Villemain, and master of the Requests of the French King’s household, was sent as ambassador to the Portuguese Court in 1559, and purchased while at Lisbon some tobacco seed from a Flemish merchant who had obtained it in Florida. He sent it to the Grand Prior of France, and the herb was originally known as Herbe du Grand Prieur. When Nicot returned to France in 1561 he presented the Queen, Catharine de Medicis, with some of the plants, and its name was then altered, in compliment to her, to Herbe de la Reine, and Herbe Medicée. The native name of petun was, however, occasionally used; but all were allowed to fall into disuse for one constructed in honour of the original importer; thus Nicotiana became its recognised name, a term still preserved to us in Nicotine, the scientific name for the essential oil the tobacco-plant contains.

F. W. FAIRHOLT:

Tobacco: Its History and Associations (1859).

THE WORTHIE PLANT.

ME let the sound of great Tabaccoes praise

A pitch above those love-sicke Poets raise:

Let me adore with my thrice-happie pen

The sweete and sole delight of mortall men,

The Cornu-copia of all earthly pleasure,

Where bank-rupt Nature hath consum’d her treasure,

A worthie plant springing from Floraes hand,

The blessed of spring of an uncouth land.

Sir JOHN BEAUMONT, Bt.:

The Metamorphosis of Tabacco (1602).

NEWS FROM THE NEW FOUND LAND.

THERE is an herbe* which is sowed a part by itselfe & is called by the inhabitants vppówoc: In the West Indies it hath divers names, according to the severall places & countries where it groweth and is used: The Spaniardes generally call it Tobacco. The leaves thereof being dried and brought into powder: they use to take the fume or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of claie into their stomache and heade; from whence it purgeth superfluous fleame & other grosse humors, openeth all the pores & passages of the body: by which meanes the use thereof, not only preserveth the body from obstructions; but also if any be, so that they have not beene of too long continuance, in short time breaketh them: wherby their bodies are notably preserved in health, & know not many greevous diseases wherewithall wee in England are oftentimes afflicted.

This Vppówoc is of so precious estimation amongest them, that they thinke their gods are marvelously delighted therwith: Wherupon sometime they make hallowed fires & cast some of the pouder therein for a sacrifice: being in a storme uppon the waters, to pacifie their gods, they cast some up into the aire and into the water: so a weare for fish being newly set up, they cast some therein and into the aire: also after an escape of danger, they cast some into the aire likewise: but all done with strange gestures, stamping, somtime dauncing, clapping of hands, holding up of hands, & staring up into the heavens, uttering therewithal & chattering strange words & noises.

We our selves during the time we were there used to suck it after their maner, as also since our returne, & have found manie rare and wonderful experiments of the vertues thereof; of which the relation would require a volume by itselfe: the use of it by so manie of late, men & women of great calling as else, and some learned Phisitions also, is sufficient witnes.

THOMAS HARRIOT: A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, etc. (1588).

FIRE! FIRE!

TARLTON* (as other Gentlemen used) at the first comming up of tabacco, did take it more for fashions sake than otherwise, and being in a roome, set between two men overcome with Wine, and they never seeing the like, wondered at it; and seeing the vapour come out of Tarlton’s nose, cryed out, Fire, Fire, and threw a cup of Wine in Tarlton’s face. Make no more stirre, quoth Tarlton, the fire is quenched: if the Sheriffes come, it will turne to a fine, as the custome is. And drinking† that againe, Fie, sayes the other, what a stinke it makes, I am almost poisoned. If it offend, saies Tarlton, let every one take a little of the smell, and so the savour will quickly goe: but Tabacco whiffes made them leave him to pay all.

RICHARD TARLTON: Tarltons Jests (1638).

HAWKINS, NOT RALEIGH.

IT seems ungracious to pluck a plume from one so eminently distinguished for important services rendered to his Queen and country as Sir Walter Raleigh;* yet nothing in history is more certain than that the common belief crediting him with the first introduction of tobacco into this country is a myth. History, whilst awarding him the palm for potatoes, points to Sir John Hawkins as the first to bring to his countrymen the peaceful pleasures of the pipe. Certainly, the weight of probabilities are in his favour. Taylor, the Water Poet, says: Tobacco was first brought into England in 1565, by Sir John Hawkins. And Edmund Howes, in his continuation of Stow’s Annals, says: Tobacco was first brought and made known by Sir John Hawkins about the year 1565, but not used by Englishmen for many years after, though at this day it is commonly used by most men and many women. These accounts correspond with Hawkins’s second voyage, viz., October 18, 1564, returning September 20,1565. Confirmatory evidence comes from John Sparkes, the younger, who, in his account of this voyage, says that Hawkins, ranging along the coast of Florida for fresh water, in July 1565, came upon the French settlement there under Landonière, where the natives, when they travel, have a kind of herbe dryed, which with a cane and an earthen cup in the end, with fire and the dryed herbe put together, they do suck through the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live four or five days without meat or drink, and this all the Frenchmen used for the purpose. Hearing these wonderful stories told of the Indian’s herbe, nothing could be more natural than that Hawkins should make trial of it for himself, and, liking it, secure specimens of the plant for cultivation and use at home. To see and hear and get all he could, was the sole end and aim of his ploughing the Spanish main. Bearing in mind that he got back to England in September 1565, we see that the statements of Taylor, the Water Poet, and Howes, the annalist, that tobacco was brought by Sir John Hawkins in 1565, are consistent and reliable. Collateral evidence on the point is to be found in L’Obel’s work on Botany, written in 1570, wherein he says: Within these few years the West Indian tobacco-plant has become an inmate of England. This of itself is conclusive against the Raleigh theory. But let us look a little further into the matter. In 1570, Raleigh was a youth of eighteen, and had just gone to France to fight in the Huguenot cause. Again, in the State Archives, there is still extant an edict issued by Queen Elizabeth against the use and abuse of tobacco, dated 1584—the year Raleigh’s first expedition sailed to the New World.

EDWARD VINCENT HEWARD:

St Nicotine of the Peace Pipe (1909).

WHEN ENGLAND WOKE UP.

WHEN Raleigh, in honour of whom England should have changed its name, introduced tobacco into this country, the glorious Elizabethan age began. I am aware that those hateful persons called Original Researchers now maintain that Raleigh was not the man; but to them I turn a deaf ear. I know, I feel, that with the introduction of tobacco England woke up from a long sleep. Suddenly a new zest had been given to life. The glory of existence became a thing to speak of. Men who had hitherto only concerned themselves with the narrow things of home put a pipe into their mouths and became philosophers. Poets and dramatists smoked until all ignoble ideas were driven from them, and into their place rushed such high thoughts as the world had not known before. Petty jealousies no longer had hold of statesmen, who smoked, and agreed to work together for the public weal. Soldiers and sailors felt when engaged with a foreign foe, that they were fighting for their pipes. The whole country was stirred by the ambition to live up to tobacco. Every one, in short, had now a lofty ideal constantly before him.

J. M. BARRIE: My Lady Nicotine (1890).

A PLEA FOR PROTECTION.

To my Lord The Bishop of Murray.

THE statelie, rich, late conquered Indian plaines

Foster a plant, the princess of all plants,

Which Portugall after perill and paines,

To Europe brought, as it most justlie vants:

This plant at home the people and Priests assure,

Of his goodwill, whom they as God adore,

Both here and there it worketh wondrous cure,

And hath such heavenlie vertue hid in store.

A stranger plant shipwracked in our coast,

Is come to help this cold phlegmatick soyle,

Yet cannot live for calumnie and boast,

In danger daylie of some greater broyle:

My Lord this sacred herb which never offendit

Is forced to crave your favour to defend it.*

WILLIAM BARCLAY:

Nepenthes, or the Vertues of Tabacco (1614).

WESTWARD HO!

THEY had gone ten miles or more; the day began to draw in, and the Western wind to sweep more cold and cheerless every moment, when Amyas, knowing that there was not an inn hard by around for many a mile ahead, took a pull at a certain bottle which Lady Grenvile had put into his holster, and then offered Yeo a pull also.

He declined; he had meat and drink too about him, Heaven be praised!

Meat and drink? fall to then, man, and don’t stand on manners.

Whereon Yeo, seeing an old decayed willow by a brook, went to it and took therefrom some touchwood, to which he set a light with his knife and a stone, while Amyas watched, a little puzzled and startled, as Yeo’s fiery reputation came into his mind. Was he really a Salamander-Sprite, and going to warm his inside by a meal of burning tinder? But now Yeo, in his solemn methodical way, pulled out of his bosom a brown leaf, and began rolling a piece of it up neatly to the size of his little finger; and then, putting the one end into his mouth and the other on the tinder, sucked at it till it was a-light; and drinking down the smoke, began puffing it out again at his nostrils with a grunt of deepest satisfaction, and resumed his dogtrot by Amyas’s side, as if he had been a walking chimney.

On which Amyas burst into a loud laugh, and cried, Why, no wonder they said you breathed fire! Is not that the Indian’s tobacco?

Yea, verily, Heaven be praised! but did you never see it before?

Never, though we heard talk of it along the coast; but we took it for one more Spanish lie. Humph—well, live and learn!

Ah, Sir, no lie, but a blessed truth, as I can tell, who have ere now gone in the strength of this weed three days and nights without eating; and therefore, Sir, the Indians always carry it with them on their war-parties: and no wonder; for when all things were made none were made better than this; to be a lone man’s companion, a bachelor’s friend, a hungry man’s food, a sad man’s cordial, a wakeful man’s sleep, and a chilly man’s fire, Sir; while for stanching of wounds, purging of rheum, and settling of the stomach, there’s no herb like unto it under the canopy of heaven.

CHARLES KINGSLEY: Westward Ho! (1855).

THOU DEAR CONCOMITANT.

HAIL! Indian plant, to ancient times unknown—

A modern truly thou, and all our own!

Thou dear concomitant of nappy ale,

Thou sweet prolonger of an old man’s tale.

Or, if thou’rt pulverised in smart rappee,

And reach Sir Fopling’s brain (if brain there be),

He shines in dedications, poems, plays,

Soars in Pindarics, and asserts the bays;

Thus dost thou every taste and genius hit—

In smoke thou’rt wisdom, and in snuff thou’rt wit.

The Rev. Mr PRIOR:

Miscellaneous Pieces (1765).

THE CONVERT TO TOBACCO: A TALE.

HAIL Raleigh! venerable shade,

Accept this tribute, humbly paid;

To thee we owe our country’s wealth,

And smirking glee, and lusty health:

From ashes white as driven snow,

Tobacco clouds, ’tis what we owe,

In fragrant wreaths ascend the sky,

To thee, the smoaker’s deity.

Immortal weed! all-healing plant!

Possessing thee we nothing want.

Assistant chief to country vicar,

Next to concordance and liquor:

If text obscure perplex his brain,

He scratches, thinks, but all in vain,

Till lighted pipe’s prevailing ray,

Like Phœbus, drives the fog away.

Concomitant of Cambro-Briton,

(If I a rhime for that cou’d hit on)

Content with thee, he’ll barefoot trudge it,

His hose and shoes fast bound in budget;

With thee, dear partner of his ale,

The justice grave prolongs his tale;

And fast asleep does wisely prate us,

Whilst sober whiff fills each Hiatus.

With thee—but hark’ee, says a friend,

Tom, will thy preface never end?

We want the tale you promis’d us.

The tale d’ye want?—then take it thus:

Buxoma was a banker’s widow,

Frolick and free as good queen Dido;

For now twelve months were past and gone,

Since spouse lay cover’d with a stone.

At first, indeed, for fashion-sake,

She must not rest asleep, or wake;

The wretched’st woman sure alive,

The best of husbands to survive!

O had she dy’d! (but ’twas too late)

To save her dearee from his fate!

Poor ten per cent.! his hour was come,

E’er he had half made up his plumb.

You’d swear she’d learnt to mourn at school;

She sigh’d by note, and wept by rule.

The neighbours saw’t; and who but she

For conjugal sincerity!

But now the farce was o’er, she saw

’Twas time the vizard to withdraw.

The