of a polypus which closed up the stomach,
the formation of which was attributed to the excessive use of snuff.
Some portion of the snuff will involuntarily find its way into the
stomach, where its pernicious properties soon manifest themselves, being
frequently followed by nausea, vomitings, loss of appetite, and impaired
digestion. The drain of the juices has a tendency to injure the muscles
of the face, to render them flaccid, to furrow and corrugate the skin,
and to give a gaunt, withered, and jaundiced appearance to "the human
face divine."

We are also informed that it embrowns the complexion, by withdrawing
those peculiar secretions which communicate the fine vermillion hue of
beauty. In our country, however, women do not abandon themselves to this
impure habit, till they are married, and have no farther desire to
please, or till they are somewhat _passees_, and find their faculties of
pleasing impaired. What a death-blow does snuffing give to all that
romance with which it is the interest of refined society to invest the
fair sex! How vulgar the thought "that a sneeze should interrupt a
sigh!"--How unpoetical is snuff! The most suitable verses which a lover
could address to a snuff-taking mistress, would be imitations of
Horace's lines to the Sorceress Canidia. What sylph would superintend
the conveyance of this dust to the nostrils of a belle? What Gnome would
not take a fiendish delight in hovering over a pipe-loving beauty?

"The only advantage," says Dr. Leake, "of taking snuff, is that of
sneezing, which, in sluggish phlegmatic habits, will give universal
concussion to the body, and promote a more free circulation of the
blood; but of this benefit snuff-takers are deprived, from being
familiar with its use." When the stimulus of snuff ceases to be
sufficient, recourse is immediately had to certain admixtures, by which
the necessary excitement is procured; thus pepper, euphorbium,
hellebore, and even pulverised glass, are made use of to give it
additional pungency. Snuffing is also a frequent cause of blindness.
Nature has appointed certain fluids to nourish and preserve the eye,
which, if withdrawn, cause the sight to become prematurely old, impaired
by weakness, and sometimes totally destroyed. We are also told that it
dries up and blackens the brain, and gives the stomach a yellow hue;[68]
that it injures the moral faculties, impairs the memory, and, indeed,
debilitates all the intellectual powers, and th