"The custom of smoking is of much greater antiquity in Ireland than the introduction of tobacco into Europe. Smoking pipes made of bronze are frequently found in our Irish _tumuli_, or sepulchral mounds, of the most remote antiquity; and similar pipes, made of baked clay, are discovered daily in all parts of the island. A curious instance of the _bathos_ in sculpture, which also illustrates the antiquity of this custom, occurs on the monument of Donogh O'Brien, king of Thomond, who was killed in 1267, and interred in the Abbey of Corcumrac, in the co. of Clare, of which his family were the founders. He is represented in the usual recumbent posture, with the short pipe or _dudeen_ of the Irish in his mouth." In the _Anthologia Hibernica_ for May 1793, vol. i. p. 352., we have some remarks on the antiquity of smoking "among the German and Northern nations," who, the writer says, "were clearly acquainted with, and cultivated tobacco, which they smoked through wooden and earthen tubes." He refers to Herod. lib. i. sec. 36.; Strabo, lib. vii. 296.; Pomp. Mela 2, and Solinus, c. 15. Wherever we go, we see smoking so universal a practice, and people "taking to it so naturally," that we are inclined to believe that it was always so; that our first father enjoyed a quiet puff now and then; (that, like a poet, man "nascitur non fit" a smoker); and that the soothing power of this narcotic tranquillised the soul of the aquatic patriarch, disturbed by the roar of billows and the convulsions of nature, and diffused its peaceful influence over the inmates of the ark. Yes, we are tempted to spurn the question, When and where was smoking introduced? as being equal to When and where was _man_ introduced? Yet, as some do not consider man as a smoking animal "de natu et ab initio," the question may provoke some interesting replies from your learned correspondents. Jarltzberg. * * * * * SIR GREGORY NORTON, BART.