But no considerations of this nature could either restrain Bishop Fletcher, or convince the gallants of the day that they were ruining either body or soul in their love of tobacco. It was very generally employed in the form of snuff by both sexes in the seventeenth century, and was allowed even in the royal presence.[232] “Before the meat came smoking to the board,” says Dekker, “our gallant must draw out his tobacco-box, and the ladle for the cold snuff into the nostril, all which artillery may be of gold or silver, if he can reach his several tricks in taking it, as the whiff, the ring, &c., for these are complements that gain gentlemen no mean respect.”[233] It was the custom to raise the snuff with a spoon to the nose; the snuff or pouncet-box having been long in vogue, charged, before the discovery of Ralegh, with cephalic powder, known since the time of Herodotus:-- “He was perfumed like a milliner, And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose.”[234] Footnote 232: Stowe’s “Annals.” Footnote 233: Gull’s “Horn-book,” pp. 119, 120. Footnote 234: Henry IV. It was in vain that every power was combined to crush the practice of smoking, of the inveteracy of which Bishop Fletcher affords a memorable example. Monarchs united to oppose it, and it was even condemned on religious grounds; but that plea made no impression on Bishop Fletcher. Elizabeth had published an edict against it, assigning as a reason that her subjects, by employing the same luxuries as barbarians, would become barbarous. James I. published his famous counterblast to tobacco, comparing it to the “horrible Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomless;” and imposed on it a prohibitory duty of six shillings and eight-pence per pound on its importation--an impost which Charles continued, making tobacco a royal monopoly, as it still is in France and the Netherlands--the duty having been only twopence a pound in the reign of Elizabeth. Still smoking prevailed; Ralegh had introduced it after the return of Sir Francis Drake from America, and all fashionable men practised it. Villiers, more especially, was probably among the most inveterate, after his residence in Spain; a pipe, a mug of ale, and a nutmeg were the right style at the Mitre and the Mermaid; and probably found toleration even in the hall of Burleigh, or at New-hall.