'tis makes them so slack--O?
'Twas because it inclined
To be honest the mind,
And therefore they banished tobacco."

One of the most curious pieces of verse ever written on tobacco is the
following by Southey, entitled "Elegy on a Quid of Tobacco:"--

"It lay before me on the close-grazed grass,
Beside my path, an old tobacco quid:
And shall I by the mute adviser pass
Without one serious thought? now Heaven forbid!

"Perhaps some idle drunkard threw thee there--
Some husband spendthrift of his weekly hire;
One who for wife and children takes no care,
But sits and tipples by the ale-house fire.

"Ah! luckless was the day he learned to chew!
Embryo of ills the quid that pleased him first;
Thirsty from that unhappy quid he grew,
Then to the ale-house went to quench his thirst.

"So great events from causes small arise--
The forest oak was once an acorn seed;
And many a wretch from drunkenness who dies,
Owes all his evils to the Indian weed.

"Let no temptation, mortal, ere come nigh!
Suspect some ambush in the parsley hid;
From the first kiss of love ye maidens fly,
Ye youths, avoid the first Tobacco-quid!

"Perhaps I wrong thee, O thou veteran chaw,
And better thoughts my musings should engage;
That thou wert rounded in some toothless jaw,
The joy, perhaps of solitary age.

"One who has suffered Fortune's hardest knocks,
Poor, and with none to tend on his gray hairs;
Yet has a friend in his Tobacco-box,
And, while he rolls his quid, forgets his cares.

"Even so it is with human happiness--
Each seeks his own according to his whim;
One toils for wealth, one Fame alone can bless,
One asks a quid--a quid is all to him.

"O, veteran chaw! thy fibres savory, strong,
While aught remained to chew, thy master chewed,
Then cast thee here, when all thy juice was gone,
Emblem of selfish man's ingratitude!

"O, happy man! O, cast-off quid! is he
Who, like as thou, has comforted the poor;
Happy his age who knows himself, like thee,
Thou didst thy duty--man can do no more."

Another well known song of the Seventeenth Century is entitled "The
Tryumph of Tobacco over Sack and Ale:"--

Nay, soft by your leaves,
Tobacco bereaves
You both of the garland; forbear it;
You are two to one,