"The pungent, nose-refreshing weed, Which whether pulverised it gain A speedy passage to the brain, Or whether touched with fire it rise In circling eddies to the skies, Does thought more quicken and refine Than all the breath of all the Nine." Pope, in "The Rape of the Lock," refers to ladies with their snuff-boxes always handy, and the fair Belinda found hers particularly useful in the battle she waged:-- "See, fierce Belinda on the baron flies With more than usual lightning in her eyes; And this bred lord, with manly strength endued, She with one finger and a thumb subdued. Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw; The gnomes direct, to every atom just, The pungent grains of titillating dust. Sudden with startling tears each eye o'erflows, And the high dome re-echoes to his nose." Napoleon's legacy to the famous Lady Holland was a snuff-box, and Moore celebrated the gift in a verse written while he was in Paris in 1821:-- "Gift of the Hero, on his dying day, To her who pitying watch'd, for ever nigh; Oh, could he see the proud, the happy ray, This relic lights up in her generous eye, Sighing, he'd feel how easy 'tis to pay A friendship all his kingdoms could not buy." Amongst ladies we have to include the charming Clarinda, a friend of Robert Burns, on whom he wrote when obliged to leave her:-- "She, the fair sun of all her sex, Has blest my glorious day, And shall, a glimmering planet, fix My worship to its ray." [Illustration: 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."