Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and CommerceBillings, E. R.
History
Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce
Billings, E. R.
Tobacco -- History; Tobacco industry -- History; Tobacco use
"It was the opinion of the age that every Pagan deity had a
real existence in the world of evil spirits. After further
quotations of Monardus, to prove that the devil is 'the
author of Tobacco, and of the knowledge thereof,' J. H.
concludes his seventh reason by declaring, 'Wherefore in
mine opinion this practice is more to be excluded of us
Christians, who follow Veritie and Truth, and detest and
abhor the devil as a lyar and deceiver of mankind.' In the
first year of this century, pipes were not only exhibited,
but were used upon the stage. They seem at first to have
been smoked, not during 'the induction.' In the induction to
Ben Jonson's 'Cynthia's Revels' (1601), the Third Child
says: 'Now, sir, suppose I am one of your genteel auditors,
that am come in, having paid my money at the door, with much
ado; and here take my place, and sit down, I have my three
sorts of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus I
begin.' The Third Child thereupon smokes; but it seems as if
the smoking on the stage was a kind of protest against a
prior smoking in the pit. In John Webster's 'Malcontent,' as
augmented by John Marston in 1604, Sly says in the
introduction: 'Come, coose, (coz or goose!) let's take some
tobacco.'
"In 'The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling Street,' published
in 1607, and attributed by some to Shakespeare,
tobacco-taking or tobacco-drinking (as smoking was then
usually called) appears no longer in the induction, but in
the play itself, Idle, the highwayman, says to the old
soldier, Skirmish, 'Have you any tobacco about you?' Idle
being supplied, smokes a pipe on the stage. These extracts,
however, may have been cited before, together with others of
like character in the great days of the English Drama. Pipes
continued to appear upon the stage until its abolition (in
company with the Prayer Book) by the Puritan rulers. They
reappeared on the stage of the Restoration. In Thomas
Shadwell's 'Virtuos' (1676),--to take one instance,--Mirando
and Clarinda fling away Snarl's cane, hat and periwig, and
break his pipes, because he 'takes nasty tobacco before
ladies.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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