not scruple to place their brilliant boxes on the altar for their use, in spite of Pontifical ordinances and anathemas from Urban VIII. and Innocent XII. Physicians, carried away with the belief that a grand sternutatory had been discovered, proclaimed its advent to a grateful people, and prescribed its use liberally; for, said they, ‘it must needs do good where the brain is replete with many humours, for senselessness or benumming of the brains, and for a hicket that proceedeth of repletion.’ Yet there were divisions in the ranks of medical men; there were different sides of the question, different interests or tastes to be considered. Had not the Duc d’Harcourt suffered martyrdom in the new cause in order to please Louis le Grand? The Court physician, Monsieur Fagon, devoted his brilliant talents to a public denunciation of the new vice which, springing from heathen soil, was fast spreading over Christendom! Unhappily for the success his eloquence merited, in the warmth of his oratory he so far forgot himself as to dip his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and take copious pinches of _tabac en poudre_ in order to refresh his fickle brain. The early writers on the smoking habit were perplexed about the origin of the name given to the weed. Many favoured the opinion that the plant and its use had first come under the observation of Europeans in the island of Tobago. This notion is shewn to be incorrect in a work bearing the rather long and ambitious title of _Tobago: a Geographical Description, Natural and Civil History, together with a full Representation of the Produce and other Advantages arising from the Fertility, excellent Harbours, and Happy Situation of that Famous Island_. The author says, ‘I do not recollect any author who has given a clear account of this name; and as many have expressed a doubt whether the island was so called from the herb, or the herb from the island, I hope the curious and inquisitive reader will be well pleased to see that matter set in its true light; for the fact is that neither the island received its name from the herb, nor the herb from the island. The appellation is, indeed, Indian, and yet was bestowed by the Spaniards. The thing happened thus: the Caribbees were extremely fond of tobacco, which in their language they called _kohiha_, and fancied when they were drunk with the fumes of it the dreams they had were in some sort inspired. Now their method of taking it was this: they first made a fire of wood, and when it was burnt out they scattered upon the living embers the leaves of the plant, and received the smoke of it by the help of an instrument that was hollow, made exactly in the shape of the letter Y, putting the larger tube into the smoke, and thrusting the shorter tubes up their nostrils. This instrument they called _tabago_, and when the Admiral Christopher Columbus passed to the southward of this island he judged the form of it to resemble that instrument, and thence it received its name.’