The house wherein Mr. Allison realized by fair dealing and frugality the modest fortune which enabled him to repurchase the homestead of his fathers, is still a Tobacconists, and has continued to be so from “the palmy days” of that trade, when King James vainly endeavoured by the expression of his royal dislike, to discountenance the newly-imported practice of smoking; and Joshua Sylvester thundered from Mount Helicon a Volley of Holy Shot, thinking that thereby “Tobacco” should be “battered, and the Pipes shattered, about their ears that idly idolize so base and barbarous a weed, or at least-wise overlove so loathsome vanity.” For he said, “If there be any Herb in any place Most opposite to God's good Herb of Grace, 'Tis doubtless this; and this doth plainly prove it, That for the most, most graceless men do love it.” Yet it was not long before the dead and unsavoury odour of that weed, to which a Parisian was made to say that “sea-coal smoke seemed a very Portugal perfume,” prevailed as much in the raiment of the more coarsely clad part of the community, as the scent of lavender among those who were clothed in fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: and it had grown so much in fashion, that it was said children “began to play with broken pipes, instead of corals, to make way for their teeth.” Louis XIV. endeavoured just as ineffectually to discourage the use of snuff-taking. His _valets de chambre_ were obliged to renounce it when they were appointed to their office; and the Duke of Harcourt was supposed to have died of apoplexy in consequence of having, to please his Majesty, left off at once a habit which he had carried to excess.