Now, though poets have favoured us with many a canto on the raptures inspired by flowing bowls and sparkling goblets, they have rarely condescended to give us one line, if it were only by way of note, on the “state of the stomach” on the morning after one of those “nights and suppers of the gods.” Such a detail indeed was never intended for the divine art of poesy. It is a job not at all calculated for the lover of agreeable fiction, and hence the world hears little on the subject. Those after-reckonings are nevertheless serious, though unpalatable things. Pleasure here acts much like a tavern host, who remembers most accurately all the good things he provides, though his guests are both apt and willing to forget them. Every item is carefully put down, and must be paid for. I shall only say, that fortunate is he who takes warning in time. I might moralise on this theme in good set phrase, but the ground has been so well and so frequently beaten by others, that I forbear. With respect to such articles as opium and spirits, the “spirit of the age,” as I have already intimated, runs quite in an opposite direction to that of indulgence; and it is wisely considered that as those who can be temperate in the use of such ticklish commodities must owe a great deal to a happy temperament of constitution, and be few in number, whilst the greater part of mankind are not so felicitously moulded, the rule of teetotalism, viz., entire abstinence, is on the whole the safest and best. But there is one article in our pharmacopœia of stimulants, upon which there seems to be some difference of opinion, and with regard to which I should wish to record my humble opinion. I allude to the nicotian leaf-tobacco.