INTRODUCTION OF TOBACCO INTO ENGLAND. Stephen J. W. Tabor, M.D. The unfortunate colony, which Raleigh sent out under Greenville, and which, as I have previously related,* returned under such ill-starred aus- pices with Drake, had great bearing upon the after-interests of Virginia, and upon the introduction and use of the Virginian weed in Great Britain. “ ft was productive of one thing,” says the Rev. Jeremy Belknap,f “ which ivill always render it memorable—the introduction of tobacco into Eng- land.” Lane was not the only person of consideration whom Raleigh induced to accompany Greenville: besides the ingenious scholar and mathematician Hariot, there was Cavendish, whose desires to push on the tide of discovery into the still new and wonderful regions of the New World, received an impetus during the voyage, which led him afterwards to be one of the first who circumnavigated the entire globe : there was also a painter by the name of John Withe, who possessed taste, accuracy and skill. He found a vast field for the exercise of his art, and while the pen of Hariot was describing the manners and customs of the inhabitants, their jurisprudence and their natural history, the pencil of Withe was equally engaged in delineating their employments, their habitations, their landscapes, their animals, vegetable productions, superstitions, council fires, ornaments, arms, pipes, calumets, diversions, persons, dress, and all that could be sketched by the crayon, or portrayed in the living colors of nature. The drawings and paintings of Withe’s portfolio, and the manu- scripts of Hariot’s writing desk, received encouragement from Raleigh, as a number of years before, in 1575, he enabled James Le Moyne, called De Morgues, to complete colored drawings of sketches he had taken in Florida,J while he resided at Fort Charles, before it was so barbarously destroyed by the atrocious Melendez. In the plates of Withe, and the narrative of Hariot, smoking occupied a prominent situation, as one may see by looking at the second part of Theodore De Bry’s Notita America sive Peregrinationem in lndiam Occidentalem, published at Frankfort in 1590, where copies of the painter’s sketches are engraven and pre- served ; or at Beverley’s History and Present State of Virginia, where some of them are imitated ; or into the compilation of Hakluyt,$ where the original work of the historian is published, a Latin translation likewise being given in De Bry. The engravings in the folio of the latter, though a little deficient in some of the nicer points of perspective, and embellished, perhaps, with traits from the painter’s imagination, both in the elegant forms and in the free and voluptuous developments he has given to the frequent naked and prominent female figures—there being no preciuses ridicules in those primitive days to petticoat the Venus de Medicis, or pantaloon the Apollo Belvidere—are exquisitely and beautifully executed, and would do no discredit to the best artists of our own days. [Communicated for the Boston Med. and Sure- Journal.] * Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. xxxi., p, 13, et seq. 1 American Biography, vol. i., p. 317, Harper’s edit. | Hakluyt’s Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries, &c., vol. iii., p. 364, § Ibid., vol. iii., p. 266. Introduction of Tobacco into England. 157 But although tobacco was thus brought into England by others, Ra- leigh was the means of introducing it into general use. The idea that lie himself personally brought the plant into England is often maintained, but he did not visit the New World till 1595, and the contrary opinion arose, probably, from a mistranslation of a passage in Hariot’s narrative, which runs thus : “ The actions of those who have been by Sir Walter Raleigh therein employed.” In De Bry it is rendered, “ qui generosum D. Walterum Ralegh, in earn regionem comitati sunt,:—an error which - Stith* supposes to have been occasioned by the translator’s being a French- man. He adduces no proof of this fact, and the title-page in De Bry gives no name, merely saying “ nvne avtem primvm Latio donata a C.C. A.” In the life of Raleigh, prefixed to the collection of his works by Oldys and Birch, we are told, however, that the colonists under Lane brought tobacco with them, “ doubtless according to the instructions they had received of their proprietor.”! This, too, 1 regard as a mere hy- pothesis of Oldys ; but though Raleigh had no personal or direct agency in bringing tobacco to his own country, he had the greatest influence in securing it a favorable reception when it had once come. He was one of the most fashionable courtiers of his day, and his example had great weight, for from the time he had his debate before the Privy Council with Lord Grey, he received expressive tokens of Elizabeth’s royal flavor. As Sir Robert Naunton says, “ he had gotten the queen’s ear in a trice, and she began to be taken with his elocution, and loved to hear his rea- sons to her demands. And the truth is, she took him for a kind of oracle.”! This estimation in which he was held, and which was of so much service in giving countenance to the use of tobacco, owed its origin to a singular display of gallantry, which Fuller thus relates :—“ This Cap- tain Raleigh, coming out of Ireland to the English court in good habit (his clothes being then a considerable part of his estate), found the queen walking, till meeting with a plashy place, she seemed to scruple going thereon. Presently Raleigh cast and spread his new plush cloak on the ground, whereon the queen trod gently, rewarding him afterwards with many suits for his so free and reasonable a tender of so fair a foot cloth.”<§> Yet even Raleigh, notwithstanding his popularity with all classes, dared at first venture to solace himself with the Indian novelty in no other than a private manner.|| There is a popular tradition connected with this secret enjoyment, which I shall give literally as I find it in an old journal:—“Ralegh [for so the name was originally spelled], whilst smoking in his study, was surprised by his servant’s bringing in his cus- tomary tankard of ale and nutmeg. Seeing the smoke reeking out of his mouth, the man threw all the ale in his master’s face. Then run- ning down stairs, he alarmed the family with exclamations that his mas- ter was on fire, and before they could get up stairs would be burnt to * History of the First Settlement of Virginia, p. 22. Williamsburgh, Va., 1747, 8vo. t Vol. i., p. 31. Oxford, 1829, 8vo. j Fragmenta Regalia. &c., p. 109. London, 1824, fol. § History of the Worthies of England, endeavored by Tlios. Fuller, D.D. Re-printed in London 1811, 4to., vol. i., p. 419. || Asiatic Journal, vol. xxii., p. 138. London, 1826. 158 Introduction of Tobacco into England. ashes.”* Raleigh had good reason to apprehend that odium would be attached to a public indulgence of the habit, because at first, in England, tobacco was supposed to be almost a specific in the cure of syphilis, and a suspicion of the disease would cling to all who used it—a reputation Raleigh did not desire. But despite this prejudice he soon gave over his secret devotions to the pipe, and often sat at the street-door openly en- joying the luxury. At his own house in Islington, be gave “ smoking parties,” the whole entertainment of which consisted of a mug of ale and nutmeg and a pipe of tobacco.f In the Gentleman’s Magazine, for 1791, is an engraving of the house in Islington where Sir Walter formerly resided, and which, at the time the engraving was published, was called The Tied Bull Inn, and it may be thus styled and used up to this very day. In the principal room of the house is a coat of arms, on the top of the shield of which is a tobacco plant, between two sea-horses—1 do not pretend and indeed cannot speak in heraldic language—on each side two mermaids ; at the bottom two parrots, one green and the other gray ; the whole enclosed in an oval border. A plate of it is given in the work just cited.J A German writer relates that in 1812 the house and arms remained in a good state of preservation^—monuments, be might have added, of an extraordinary man, one gifted with many and multifarious talents; distinguished as a scholar, a statesman and soldier; endowed with a sagacity beyond bis age, with a perception of the rights of the masses, which in this day would have made him a distinguished republi- can, with a courage which quailed at no dangers, and with an enthusiasm which the greatest obstacles could not extinguish. Such was one of the earliest English patrons of tobacco. His example gained other courtiers, so that smoking obtained, in a little time, a fashionable and polite eclat. Literary men adopted the habit and embalmed tobacco in their writings. Spenser, in his Faerie Queene, styled the herb “divine tobacco,”|| and did it in a manner peculiarly well calculated to gratify Sir Walter Raleigh, the friend of both the w'eed and the poet. When once the habit of smoking was taken up by the court of the “ virgin queen,” it rapidly gained favor among all who were able to indulge in it. The ladies adopted the custom,11 and Elizabeth herself was as familiar with a to- bacco pipe as with her sceptre, and Raleigh is said to have won of her a singular wager, to which James Howell alludes,** concerning the weight of tobacco smoke.ff The Knight observed to her, during a conversation on the virtues and excellencies of the new plant, that he could tell her the exact weight of the smoke which rose from the bowl of a pipe or was puffed away during the consumption of any given quantity. The Queen, suspecting he was “ playing the traveller,” laid a wager he * The British Apollo, vol. ii., p. 376 ; see, also, Appleliee’s Journal for Sept. 18th, 1731. t Biographies Britannica, or the Lives of the most eminent Persons, &c., vol. V., p. 3471. London, 1778, fol. I Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. lxi., p. 17. London,8vo. § Line Abhandlung auf Taback, Thee und Iiaflee, u. s. f., seite 210. Vienna, 1815, 8vo. D Todd’s Works of Edmund Spenser, vol. iv., p. 429. London, 1805. IT Loudon’s Encyclopaedia of Agriculture, &c., p. 936. London, 1831. ** Epistolae Ho-Eliame. Familiar Letters, &c., book iii., lett. vii. London, 167S, 5th edition; U Cayley’s life of Sir Walter Ralegh, Knt., vol. i. p. 31. London, 1806, 8vo. Introduction of Tobacco into England. 159 could not. Raleigh weighed the tobacco with which he filled his pipe, smoked it deliberately, knocked out the ashes and weighed them—the difference between the last and the first was the weight of the smoke. Miserly as Elizabeth was, she paid the wager, saying, in allusion to the alchemists, “ many laborers in the fire turn gold into smoke ; you have turned smoke into gold!” This was a prosperous era in the history of tobacco; princes, nobles, knights, ladies, the wealthy, the fashionable, all numbered themselves amongst its devotees ; the days of imposts, “ counter- blasts ” and prohibitions had not yet arrived; smoking was one of the characteristics of a courtier, and the conveniences of a gentleman were considered imperfect without a box for pipes and tobacco. So late as the year 1715, among Ralph Thoresly’s artificial curiosities, is registered with consideration and care, “ Sir Walter Raleigh’s tobacco-box, as it is called, but it is rather the case for the glass wherein it was preserved, which was surrounded with small wax candles of various colors. This is of gilded leather, like a muff-case, about half a foot broad, and thirteen inches high, and hath cases for sixteen pipes within it.”* From this mention of pipes it would naturally be inferred that Ralph Lane, Withe, Hariot, and their companions, noticed them during their residence in Virginia, in 1585, and had brought both them and tobacco to England in 1586. Such was the case, and Charles Ecluse, or Clusius, as he Latinized his name, says the English courtiers, when they saw these clay pipes, ordered others to be made of a similar fashion.f Con- cerning these pipes and the fashionable novelty which accompanied them, there is a graphic passage in the historian William Camden, and as it is not much known [ shall give the whole of it in a note.J Speaking of Ralph Lane and his fellow voyagers, Camden says, as I shall translate from his Latin : “These persons who thus returned, brought with them, so far as I can learn, the first Indian plant, called tobacco or nicotiana, ever known in England, and this plant the Indians believed to be good for crudities. Certainly, however, it was thenceforth greatly valued, and very much used by the English people ; many partook of it from mere lasciviousness, and many also, under pretexts of health, drew into their mouths, by means of clay pipes, its uncommonly stinking smoke, directly expelling it again through their nostrils ; on which account tobacco-shops are as nu- merous in towns as inns and ale-houses. By means of this habit (as has been aptly observed) the bodies of those persons who are so enticed by this herb, appear to have grown base and to have taken upon them a barbar- * Lucatus Leodiensis ; or the Topography of the Ancient Town and Tarish of Leeds, &.C., p. 485. London, 1715, fol. f Excerpta Curiosa e Exotica et Historiam Plantarnm Uariorum, a C. Clusio, p. 609. Antv. 1610, 16mo. { Et hi ruduces Indicam illam plantam quam Tahaccam vocant et Nicotiam, qua contra cruditates, ab Indis edocti, usi erant, in Anglicam primi, quod sciam, intulerunt. Ex illo sane tempore usu ccepit esse creberrimo, et magno pretio, duin quam plurimi graveolentem illius fumum, alii lascivientes, per tubulum testaceum inexplebili aviditate passim hauriunt et mox a naribus efflant; adeo ut tabern* tabaccana; non minus quam cervisiari® et vinariae passim per oppida habeantur. Ut Anglorum cor- pora (quod salse ille dixit) qui liac planta tantopere delectantur ; in Barbarosum naturam degenerasse videantur; quum iisdem quibus Barbari delectentur, et sanari se posse credant.”—Rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha, &c., p. 415, Edit. Elzev., 1625. 160 ous nature, inasmuch as they are fascinated by the same articles as bar- barians, and believe they can be cured by the same means.” There are several circumstances in this passage deserving of particular consideration, all of which, however, I shall have to omit, for the present, to pursue the history of “ tobacco’s propagation ” in a continuous man- ner. I shall now only remark concerning clay pipes, that up to the year 1586 they were not in use on the Continent of Europe; into England they were that year introduced, and in America seem to have been pecu- liar to Virginia : but the different fashions and materials of pipes I may discuss more at length in a future paper. It is now time to return to the progress of tobacco, which I shall hereafter do, giving in my next communication an account of its novel advent into Italy under the pat- ronage of a distinguished cardinal of the Holy See.