to their homes, but to privately and secretly destroy all the materials, machines and instruments of production. It is not a little amusing to learn how energetically the envoy carried out the order of destruction. He relates at considerable length in his home despatch how he and his secretary (a private secretary undoubtedly) spent a _night_ in breaking up all the machinery and laying waste the material; how he afterwards explained to the Tsar that the object of his zealous operations in smashing up the plant was to save his Majesty’s subjects from a burdensome monopoly and thus, really, to encourage and enhance the tobacco trade in Russia. Remembering that the Tsar was Peter the Great, we are not surprised to learn that our excellent envoy was listened to with impatience. CHAPTER IX. SOCIAL GOSSIP ABOUT THE WEED. Why should we so much despise So good and wholesome an exercise As early and late, to meditate? Thus think, and drink tobacco. G. W. Ancient and delightful George Wither, while suffering for conscience’ sake imprisonment in the Marshalsea, found a never-failing comfort in his beloved Indian weed. Its soothing vapours moved him to meditation; the earthen pipe, the burning weed, the vanishing fumes, and the ashes left behind, were to him emblems of the transitory nature of man’s earthly career. Musing thus, he poured forth his thoughts in a poem which has taken a firmer hold on the popular taste than any other of the countless songs composed on the subject of tobacco. It has undergone numerous alterations, but in every instance for the worse. In a mutilated form, and with a second part added, it is found among the ‘Gospel Sonnets’ of the Rev. Ralph Erskine, of the Scottish Church. It is the ‘Smoking Spiritualized’ which is still in print among the ballad-vendors of the east end of London. It reappeared with variations in Mr. J. H. Dixon’s ‘Songs and Ballads of the Peasantry of England’; and again in the Rev. James Plumptre’s ‘Tobacco is an Indian weed.’ So popular had the song become that Dr. Hague, in 1805, set the words to music, and Mr. Samuel Wesley, at a later date, adapted them to a tune said to be still in vogue. Yet, out of the multitude of admirers who so readily adopted and adapted Wither’s song, no one seems to have cared to acknowledge the source of his inspiration. But for the diligent research of Mr. Payne Collier, the student might have remained forever in ignorance of its true parentage. Turning to Mr. Chappell’s ‘Popular Music of the Olden Time’ we come upon the following passage relating to this song:—‘The earliest copy’ says Mr. Chappell, ‘I have seen is in a manuscript volume of poetry transcribed during James’s reign and which was kindly lent to me by Mr. Payne Collier. It there bears the initials of G[eorge] W[ither] a very likely person to have written such a song. A courtier poet would not have