told of the Indian’s herb in the despatch just received from Nicot. Listening to these things the Comte de Jarnac felt irresistibly impelled to do something significant of the occasion, and springing from his seat he hastened to the house of his dearest friend to repeat the story. His friend was ‘short-breathed,’ suffering indeed from a severe attack of asthma. Unfolding the packet containing his share of the precious herb, Jarnac directed an attendant to distil it; this done, he added to the liquor some euphrasy (eyebright). Then presenting the decoction to the patient, he explained to him with the eloquence born of a new faith that the spirit of the herb would enter into his own and would assuredly expel the demon of asthma. Thus urged and entreated, the sufferer swallowed the potation, and wonderful to relate, if we are to believe the zealous chronicler, the man who but a little while before was gasping for breath was now comfortably healed! Clearly then tobacco owes its introduction into the highest ranks of European society to its credentials as a healer of the sick. Immediately after France had received her first instalment, along with Nicot’s laudatory account of its marvellous virtues, Italy obtained the herb direct from the hands of Cardinal Santa Croce on his return from his nunciature in Spain, and for years it bore in his honour the name of Erba Santa Croce. Castro Duranti celebrated the event in Latin verses, wherein he ascribes to the Indian’s herb the efficacy of a charm over every malady, and extols the cardinal for his service in bringing it, coupling his name with his distinguished ancestor, who brought to Rome a portion of the true cross. He assures the reader that their services rightly considered Procure, as much as mortal man can do, The welfare of our souls and bodies too. Tidings of the pleasing delusion of tobacco’s wonderful curative properties reached these shores towards the close of the sixteenth century, when the pipe was already installed in almost every chimney-nook. Needless to say that lovers of the weed received the intelligence with warmth, and held to the new belief with a steadfastness nothing could shake. Some of England’s foremost poets and dramatists signalized their high appreciation of the exotic’s rare attributes in imperishable literature. Edmund Spenser, for example, was a great smoker, and as we have already seen, when he and Raleigh met in Ireland they would sit together by the hour over a soothing pipe, while holding delightful contests of responsive versifying. In the _Faërie Queene_ is a sweet passage telling how Belphœbe hastened into the woods to gather herbs to heal the wounded Timais: