of public
resort; but there were signs of change in various directions as we
have seen, and smoking had to a large extent ceased to be fashionable.
Pepys has very few allusions to tobacco; Evelyn fewer still. There is
little evidence as to whether or not the gallants of the Restoration
Court smoked; but considering the foppery of their attire and manners,
it seems almost certain that tobacco was not in favour among them. The
beaux with their full wigs--they carried combs of ivory or
tortoiseshell in their pockets with which they publicly combed their
flowing locks--their dandy canes and scented, laced handkerchiefs,
were not the men to enjoy the flavour of tobacco in a pipe. They were
still tobacco-worshippers; but they did not smoke. The Indian weed
retained its empire over the men (and women) of fashion by changing
its form. The beaux were the devotees of snuff. The deftly handled
pinch pleasantly titillated their nerves, and the dexterous use of the
snuff-box, moreover, could also serve the purposes of vanity by
displaying the beautiful whiteness of the hand, and the splendour of
the rings upon the fingers. The curled darlings of the late
seventeenth century and the "pretty fellows" of Queen Anne's time did
not forswear tobacco, but they abjured smoking. Snuff-taking was
universal in the fashionable world among both men and women; and the
development of this habit made smoking unfashionable.

VII

SMOKING UNFASHIONABLE: EARLY GEORGIAN DAYS

Lord Fopling smokes not--for his teeth afraid;
Sir Tawdry smokes not--for he wears brocade.

ISAAC HAWKINS BROWNE, _circa_ 1740.

With the reign of Queen Anne tobacco had entered on a period, destined
to be of long duration, when smoking was to a very large extent under
a social ban. Pipe-smoking was unfashionable--that is to say, was not
practised by men of fashion, and was for the most part regarded as
"low" or provincial--from the time named until well into the reign of
Queen Victoria. The social taboo was by no means universal--some of
the exceptions will be noted in these pages--but speaking broadly, the
general, almost universal smoking of tobacco which had been
characteristic of the earlier decades of the seventeenth century did
not again prevail until within living memory.

Throughout the eighteenth century the use of tobacco for smoking was
largely confined to the middle and humbler classes of society. To
smoke was characteristic of the "