In _Every Man out of his Humour_ we learn that the rage for tobacco had spread to the provinces. One, Sogliardo, is described as essentially a clown, yet so enamoured of the name of gentleman that he will have it though he buys it. He comes to town every term to learn the manners of polite society, and readily falls a victim to men of the Bobadil type, who sees in the novelty a new field of enterprise. Jonson describes their methods, and speaks of a bill posted in St. Paul’s churchyard notifying fledglings from the country that instruction in the art of taking tobacco can be arranged for. It affords us a glimpse of the smart men-about-town three centuries ago who lay in wait for inexperienced youth. It runs as follows:— ‘If this city, or the suburbs of the same, do afford any young gentleman of the first, second, or third head, more or less, whose friends are but lately deceased, and whose lands are but new come into his hands, that, to be as exactly qualified as the best of our ordinary gallants are, is affected to entertain the most gentleman-like use of tobacco; as first to give it the most exquisite perfume, then to know all the delicate sweet forms for the assumption of it, as also the rare corollary and the practice of the Cuban ebolition, Euripus, and Whiffe, which he shall receive or take in here at London, and evaporate at Uxbridge, or farther, if it pleases him. If there be any such generous spirit that is truly enamoured of these good faculties, may it please him but by a note of his hand, to specify the place or ordinary where he uses to eat and lie, and most sweet attendance with tobacco and pipes of the best sort shall be ministered. _Stet, quæso, candide lector._ [Illustration: EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SMOKERS] After King James had sent forth his famous _Counterblaste_ in 1604, declaring to the world that tobacco was the ‘lively image and pattern of hell,’ it was not unusual to hear the weed associated with the arch enemy. And rare Ben would seem to have been nothing loth to trim his sails to the new breeze. In his masque entitled _The Gipsies Metamorphosed_ he is so considerate as to wish that his Majesty’s nose may be protected from the smell of Tobacco with the type Of the Devil’s glyster pipe. The play accorded so well with the King’s humour that he commanded a repetition of the performance. At that time tobacco-smoking was commonly indulged in at theatres. In _Bartholomew Fair_ a pleasure seeker, named Coke, enters a puppet show and asks of the master, ‘Ha’ you none of your pretty impudent boys, now, to bring stools, fill tobacco, fetch ale, and beg money, as they have at other houses?’