Who durst dispraise tobacco whilst the smoke is in my nose, Or say, but fah! my pipe doth smell! I would I know but those Durst offer such indignity to that which I prefer; For all the brood of blackamoors will swear I do not err, In taking this same worthy whiff with valiant cavalier, But that will make his nostrils smoke, at cupps of wine or beer, When as my purse can not afford my stomach flesh or fish, I sup with smoke, and feel as well and fat as one can wish. … Much victuals serve for gluttony, to fatten men like swine, But he’s a frugal man indeed that with a leaf can dine, And needs no napkins for his hands his fingers’ ends to wipe, But keeps his kitchen in a box, and roast meat in a pipe. This is the way to help down years, a meal a day’s enough; Take out tobacco for the rest by pipe, or else in snuff, And you shall find it physical; a corpulent, fat man, Within a year shall shrink so small that round his waist you’ll span. It’s full of physic’s rare effects, it worketh sundry ways: The leaf green, dried, steep’t, burnt to dust, have each their several praise. While Englishmen smoked, and laughed at their King’s wondrous ways, or growled at his tenacious grip upon their pockets, Eastern potentates were treating their subjects, as only despots can, for daring to indulge in the Frankish novelty. In Persia, where but recently jealous strife raged for sole possession of the tobacco industry, Abbas I., of dread memory, cut off the lips of those who smoked, and the noses of any who ventured to snuff. On one occasion he threw an unfortunate man, whom he discovered selling tobacco, into a fire along with his goods. Yet, by-and-by, this demon of cruelty himself was enthralled by Nicotiana’s charms, and became one of her most fervent devotees. The Turks, under Amurath IV., were similarly punished for infringing his edict against smoking. Sir Edwin Sandys, of Pontefract, in his travels in 1610, bears testimony to similar acts of cruelty by Mahomet IV. During his stay in Constantinople he witnessed the punishment of a Turk who had been caught solacing the burden of life with the vapour of his new-found joy. Short-lived was the sturdy beggar’s happiness; he was dragged before the tribunal, and condemned to the torture of having a hole pierced through the cartilage of his nose, and a pipe inserted therein. Then, in order to render the punishment more impressive to the multitude, he was seated on the back of an ass with his face to the tail, and driven through the streets of the city, while criers proclaimed his offence and its merited punishment, according to the law of the Sultan. Not less cruel were the punishments inflicted upon Russian smokers, who, under the Tsar Michael Fedorowitz, were publicly knouted for using tobacco in any form; in some instances their nostrils were split open. If guilty of a second offence, death alone could wipe out the crime.