‘Whilst we were walking about the town he asked me if it was the custom in France, as in England, for children on setting out for school to carry in their satchel along with their books a pipe of tobacco, which their mother had taken care to fill early in the morning, in the belief that it would serve them instead of breakfast.’ Surely our French friend was grossly imposed upon. No English mother would for a moment entertain such a notion. We are next told that at the accustomed hour every one laid aside his book to light his pipe; and that the master smoked with them and taught the youngsters how to hold their pipes and draw in the tobacco-smoke; thus using them to the habit from youth, believing it absolutely necessary for health’s sake. The story told him by his Worcester friend put him in mind of a Spaniard whom he had met at the seaport of Calabria. The man, not being able to procure tobacco, cut off a piece of the cable with which he filled his pipe and drew down the smoke thereof as if it were the precious weed. He speaks, also, of an Irishman who falling ill was not allowed his usual pipe of tobacco. He submitted for some time, but he became so low and so melancholy that he could take nothing but a little tobacco, which was at last permitted him, with the result that in a short time he recovered perfect health. ‘I have known,’ says Rochefort, ‘several persons who, not content with smoking in the day, went to bed with their pipes in their mouths. Others who have risen in the night to take tobacco with as much pleasure as they would have received in drinking Alicant or Greek wine.’ Profligate smokers such as these deserve no encouragement or sympathy; they rank in the class of the besotted. Rarely do we meet with more sympathetic words in favour of the weed than in Mission’s _Memories of Travels over England_, which he published in 1697. Tobacco-smoking, he says, was commonly practised both by men and women, particularly in country places. His observations led him to remark that smoking makes the generality of Englishmen taciturn, thoughtful, and, alas, melancholy; he adds that the use of tobacco ‘not only breeds profound theologists, but also begets moral philosophers.’ And in a sonnet, which bears some resemblance to the verses of George Wither, he shows us that he had himself imbibed something of the melancholy and philosophic spirit he speaks of. The lines run as follows: Sweet smoking pipe; bright glowing stove, Companion still of my retreat, Thou dost my gloomy thoughts remove, And purge my brain with gentle heat. Tobacco, charmer of my mind, When like the meteor’s transient gleam, Thy substance gone to air, I find, I think, alas, my life’s the same! What else than lighted dust am I? Thou show’st me what my fate will be; And when thy sinking ashes die, I learn that I must end like thee.