Good Vicar of Wakefield![14] man of many sorrows, we greet thee in our reminiscences, sitting in thine happier days beneath the elm that shades thy rustic roof, as, under the influence of thy much loved pipe, thou inculcatest to the youthful circle around thee maxims of truth and piety. What peculiar feelings of veneration must we attach to these pipes and snuff-boxes. Without them, indeed--with such a true knowledge of life are they introduced--the stories would lose half their force, and nearly all their effect. How naturally do we associate with a smoker, a blandness and evenness of voice and gesture, which we can by no means ascribe to men in common. The same almost in regard to the snuff-box: the mind seems to acquire a polish and fire at its very sight. Nay, absolutely such is our profound respect for the sympathising herb, that even the _quids_ of poor Lieutenant Bowling[15] himself would appear venerable in our eyes were they but in existence. Lowering our Pegasus a peg or two from the loftier flights of conception, we will proceed more immediately to analyze the merits of these legitimate offsprings of the parent plant, smoking and snuff-taking; first of all, however, having recourse to a pinch of Welsh, to clear our head for so arduous an undertaking. That smoking and snuff-taking have, as habits pernicious to the health, been attacked repeatedly by the heads of science, is no less true than that they have escaped each intended flagellation, and thrived under the fostering lip and nose of a discerning public. Previous, however, to proceeding further, we shall take a review of the different enemies arrayed against the good old customs we have had handed down to us from our fathers. These may most generally, we think, be divided into three classes--the ladies,--physicians, and a certain class of thin and pallid gentlemen, remarkable for the delicate susceptibility of their noses. The ladies of England designate smoking and snuffing, filthy and dirty habits. If you chance, dear reader, to ask why--because--because--they are vile and dirty habits, and thereby--'hangs a tale.' Then, as a matter of course, comes to be cited a list of the most gentlemanly men, young and old, who are never guilty of committing the sin. Now, what does all this come to?--that they do dislike the habits, and therefore none but brutes, among the more refined orders, would think of annoying them by practising either in their sweet presence. The understandings of women generally, in comparison with those of men, are proverbially weak. Following the erratic course of the first of their sex, who brought misery and woe upon the devoted head of man, they in turn would fain deprive him of his two cheapest comforts, left to console him in this vale of sorrow.