in England, because, say they, it
dissipates the evil humours of the brain."

Although, according to M. Misson, the women of Devon and Cornwall
might wonder why the women of Middlesex did not take tobacco, it is
certain that London and its neighbourhood did contain at least a few
female smokers. Tom Brown, often dubbed "the facetious," but to whom a
sterner epithet might well be applied, writing about the end of the
seventeenth century, mentions a vintner's wife who, having "made her
pile," as might be said nowadays, retires to a little country-house at
Hampstead, where she drinks sack too plentifully, smokes tobacco in an
elbow-chair, and snores away the remainder of her life. And the same
writer was responsible for a satirical letter "to an Old Lady that
smoak'd Tobacco," which shows that the practice was not general, for
the letter begins: "Madam, Tho' the ill-natur'd world censures you for
smoaking." Brown advised her to continue the "innocent diversion"
because, first, it was good for the toothache, "the constant
persecutor of old ladies," and, secondly, it was a great help to
meditation, "which is the reason, I suppose," he continues, "that
recommends it to your parsons; the generality of whom can no more
write a sermon without a pipe in their mouths, than a concordance in
their hands."

From the evidence so far adduced it may fairly be concluded, I think,
that during the seventeenth century smoking was not fashionable, or
indeed anything but rare, among the women of the more well-to-do
classes, while among women of humbler rank it was an occasional, and
in a few districts a fairly general habit.

The same conclusion holds good for the eighteenth century. Among women
of the lowest class smoking was probably common enough. In Fielding's
"Amelia," a woman of the lowest character is spoken of as "smoking
tobacco, drinking punch, talking obscenely and swearing and
cursing"--which accomplishments are all carefully noted, because none
of them would be applicable to the ordinary respectable female.

The fine lady disliked tobacco. The author of "A Pipe of Tobacco," in
Dodsley's well-known "Collection," to which reference has already been
made, wrote:

_Ladies, when pipes are brought, affect to swoon;
They love no smoke, except the smoke of Town.
* * * * * * * * *
Citronia vows it has an odious stink;
She will not smoke (ye gods!)--but she will drink;_

and the same wri