The Social History of SmokingApperson, George Latimer
History
The Social History of Smoking
Apperson, George Latimer
Smoking
There is no mention of Parson Trulliber's pipe, but that pig-breeder
and lover can hardly have been a non-smoker. Both the other clerical
characters who appear in the book, the Roman Catholic priest who makes
an equivocal appearance in the eighth chapter of the third book, and
Parson Barnabas, who thinks that his own sermons are at least equal to
Tillotson's, smoke their pipes. The other smokers in "Joseph Andrews"
are the surgeon and the exciseman who, early in the story, are found
sitting in the inn kitchen with Parson Barnabas, "smoking their pipes
over some syderand"--the mysterious "cup" being a mixture of cider and
something spirituous--and Joseph's father, old Gaffer Andrews, who
appears at the end of the story, and complains bitterly that he wants
his pipe, not having had a whiff that morning.
Fielding himself smoked his pipe. When his play "The Wedding Day" was
produced by Garrick in 1743, various suggestions were made to the
author as to the excision of certain passages, and the modification of
one of the scenes. Garrick pressed for certain omissions, but--"No,
damn them," said Fielding, "if the scene is not a good one, let them
find that out"; and then, according to Murphy, he retired to the
green-room, where, during the progress of the play, he smoked his pipe
and drank champagne. Presently he heard the sound of hissing, and when
Garrick came in and explained that the audience had hissed the scene
he had wished to have modified, all Fielding said was: "Oh, damn them,
they _have_ found it out, have they!"
Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, the crafty old Jacobite who took part in the
rising of 1745 and who was executed on Tower Hill in 1747, was a
smoker. The pipe which he was reported to have smoked on the evening
before his execution, together with his snuff-box and a canvas
tobacco-bag, were for many years in the possession of the Society of
Cogers, the famous debating society of Fleet Street.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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