ch was this: A
certain Welchman coming newly to London, and beholding one
to take tobacco, never seeing the like before, and not
knowing the manner of it, but perceiving him vent smoke so
fast, and supposing his inward parts to be on fire, cried
out, 'O Jhesu, Jhesu man, for the passion of Cod hold, for
by Cod's splud ty snowt's on fire,' and having a bowle of
beere in his hand, threw it at the other's face, to quench
his smoking nose."

The following anecdote is equally ludicrous. Before tobacco was much
known in Germany, some soldiers belonging to a cavalry regiment were
quartered in a German village. One of them, a trumpeter, happened to
be a negro. A peasant, who had never seen a black man before, and who
knew nothing about tobacco, watched, though at a safe distance, the
trumpeter, while the latter groomed and fed his horse. As soon as this
business was dispatched, the negro filled his pipe and began to smoke
it. Great had been the peasant's bewilderment before; great was his
terror now. The terror reached an intolerable point when the negro
took the pipe from his mouth, offered it to the peasant, and asked
him, in the best language he could command, to take a whiff. "No, no!"
cried the peasant, in exceeding alarm; "no, no! Mr. Devil; I do not
wish to eat fire."

Henry Fielding, in "The Grub Street Opera" written about a century
ago, has the following verses on Tobacco:--

"Let the learned talk of books,
The glutton of cooks,
The lover of Celia's soft smack--O!
No mortal can boast
So noble a toast,
As a pipe of accepted tobacco.

"Let the soldier for fame,
And a general's name,
In battle get many a thwack--O!
Let who will have most
Who will rule the rooste,
Give me but a pipe of tobacco.

"Tobacco gives wit
To the dullest old cit,
And makes him of politics crack--O!
The lawyers i' th' hall
Were not able to bawl,
Were it not for a whiff of tobacco.

"The man whose chief glory
Is telling a story,
Had never arrived at the smack--O!
Between every heying,
And as I was saying,
Did he not take a whiff of tobacco.

"The doctor who places
Much skill in grimaces,
And feels your pulse running tic tack--O!
Would you know his chief skill?
It is only to fill
And smoke a good pipe of tobacco.

"The courtiers alone
To this weed are not prone;
Would you know what