t the story shows the prejudice against
smoking which was found in many places as a result of the attitude of
the fashionable world towards tobacco.

Johnstone, Parr's biographer, referring to his hero's failure to
obtain preferment to the Episcopal Bench about the year 1804,
says--"His pipe might be deemed in these fantastic days a degradation
at the table of the palace or the castle; but his noble hospitality,
combined with his habits of sobriety, whether tobacco fumigated his
table or not, would have filled his hall with the learned and the
good." A portrait of Parr hangs in the Combination Room in St. John's,
Cambridge. Originally it represented him faithfully with a long clay
between hand and mouth; but for some unknown reason the pipe has been
painted out.

A famous crony of Parr's, the learned Porson, was another devotee of
tobacco. In November 1789 Parr wrote to Dr. Burney: "The books may be
consulted, and Porson shall do it, and he will do it. I know his price
when he bargains with me; two bottles instead of one, six pipes
instead of two, burgundy instead of claret, liberty to sit till five
in the morning instead of sneaking into bed at one: these are his
terms:" and these few lines, it may be added, give a graphic picture
of Porson. According to Maltby, Porson once remarked that when smoking
began to go out of fashion, learning began to go out of fashion
also--which shows what nonsense a learned man could talk.

Another famous parson, the Rev. John Newton, was a smoker, and so was
Cowper's other clerical friend, that learned and able Dissenter, the
Rev. William Bull, whose whole mien and bearing were so dignified that
on two occasions he was mistaken for a bishop. Cowper appreciated
snuff, but did not care for smoking, and when he wrote to Unwin,
describing his new-made friend in terms of admiration, he
concluded--"Such a man is Mr. Bull. But--he smokes tobacco. Nothing is
perfection 'Nihil est ab omni parte beatum.'" Bull, however, was not
excessive in his smoking, for his daily allowance was but three pipes.
In his garden at Newport Pagnell, Bull showed Cowper a nook in which
he had placed a bench, where he said he found it very refreshing to
smoke his pipe and meditate. "Here he sits," wrote Cowper, "with his
back against one brick wall, and his nose against another, which must,
you know, be very refreshing, and greatly assist meditation."

Cowper's aversion from tobacco could not have been very strong,