The train with this infumed, all quarrel ends And fiercest foemen turn to faithful friends; The man that shall this smoky magic prove, Will need no philtres to obtain his love. Yet this sweet simple, by misordered use, Death or some dangerous sickness may produce. Should we not for our sustentation eat Because a surfeit comes from too much meat? Should we not thirst with mod’rate drink repress, Because a dropsy springs from such excess? So our fair Plant――that doth as needful stand As heaven, or fire, or air, or sea, or land; As moon, or stars that rule the gloomy night, Or sacred friendship or the sunny light―― Her treasured virtue in herself enrolls, And leaves the evil to vainglorious souls. And yet, who dies with this celestial breath, Shall live immortal in a joyful death. All goods, all pleasures, it in one can link―― ’Tis physic, clothing, music, meat, and drink. Gods would have revell’d at their feasts of Mirth With this pure distillation of the earth; The marrow of the world, star of the West, The Pearl whereby this lower Orb is blest; The joy of Mortals, Umpire of all strife, Delight of Nature, Mithridate of Life; The daintiest dish of a delicious feast, By taking which Man differs from a beast. ANONYMOUS. TEMP., JAMES I. From _The Smoker’s Guide, Philosopher and Friend_, by a veteran of Smokedom. London. Hardwicke and Bogue. ―――― THE PATRIOTIC SMOKER’S LAMENT. Tell me, shade of Walter Raleigh, Briton of the truest type, When that too-devoted valet Quenched your first-recorded pipe, Were you pondering the opinion, As you watched the airy coil, That the virtue of Virginian Might be bred in British soil? You transplanted the potato: ’Twas a more enduring gift Than the wisdom of a Plato To our poverty and thrift. That respected root has flourished Nobly for a nation’s need; But our brightest dreams are nourished Ever on a foreign weed. For the deepest meditation Of the philosophic scribe, For the poet’s inspiration, For the cynic’s polished gibe, We invoke narcotic nurses In their jargon from afar: I indite these modest verses, On a polyglot cigar. Leaf that lulls a Turkish Aga May a scholar’s soul renew, Fancy spring from Larranaga, History from honeydew. When the teacher and the tyro Spirit-manna fondly seek, ’Tis the cigarette from Cairo Or a compound from the Greek. But no British-born aroma Is fit incense to the Queen; Nature gives her best diploma To the alien nicotine. We are doomed to her ill-favour; For the plant that’s native grown Has a patriotic flavour Too exclusively our own.