FEW, perchance, of the millions who gather comfort from the "herb of fragrance" are aware that it is to Don Hernandez de Toledo we are indebted for the introduction of tobacco into Western Europe, which he first brought to Spain and Portugal in 1559. Jean Nicot was at this time Ambassador at the Court of Lisbon from Frances II, and it was he who transmitted or carried, either the seed or the plant to Catherine de Medicis, and who gave it the name _Nicotiana_. Like other great personages of the time, Catherine encouraged the homage of travellers and artists. It was considered to be one of the wonders of the New World, and reported to possess most extraordinary medicinal properties and virtues. Thirty years later the Cardinal Santa Croce, returning from his nunciature in Spain and Portugal to Italy, took with him some tobacco leaves, and we may form some idea of the enthusiasm with which its production was hailed, from a perusal of the poetry which the subject inspired, such as the following: Herb of immortal fame! Which hither first with Santa Croce came, When he, his time of nunciature expired, Back from the Court of Portugal retired; Even as his predecessor, great and good, Brought home the cross. The poet compares the exploit of the cardinal with that of his progenitor, who brought home the wood of the true cross. The first exact description of the plant is that given by Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo-y-Valdés, Governor of St. Domingo, in his _Historia General de las Indias_, printed at Seville in 1535. In this work, the leaf is said to be smoked through a branched tube of the shape of the letter [Y], which the natives called _tobaco_. After the introduction of tobacco into England by Sir Walter Raleigh on his return from America, the custom of smoking the leaf became very general, and it truly seems to have supplied a common want. It was mostly sold by the apothecaries in their dark little shops, and here the gallants would congregate to smoke their pipes and gossip, while the real Timidado, nicotine cane and pudding, was cut off with a silver knife on a maple block and retailed to the customers. The pipes used in the time of Queen Elizabeth were chiefly made of silver. The commoner kinds consisted of a walnut shell, in which a straw was inserted, and the tobacco was sold in the shops for its weight in silver. The celebrated _Counterblaste to Tobacco_, by King James I, describes smoking as "a custom loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the nose, harmfull to the brain, dangerous to the lungs; and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomlesse." In 1604 this monarch endeavoured, by means of heavy imposts, to abolish its use in this country, and in 1619 he commanded that no planter in Virginia should cultivate more than one hundred pounds.