bony and agate as they
were of their flowing wigs and clouded canes, the handles of
which were not unfrequently constructed to hold the
cherished dust. We are told by courtly Dick Steel, that a
handsome snuff-box was as much an essential of 'the fine
gentleman' as his gilt chariot, diamond ring, and brocade
sword-knot. We know them to have been manufactured of the
costliest material, heavy with gold and brilliant with
jewels, as they needed to be when their masters carried wigs
'high on the shoulder in a basket borne,' worth forty or
fifty guineas, and wore enough Flanders lace upon their
persons to have stocked a milliner's stall in New England.

"Unfortunately, but very naturally, this extravagance
rendered snuff a butt for the wits (who all took it, by the
way), to shoot at. Steele, whose weakness for dress and show
were proverbial, levelled many of his blunt shafts at its
use; and Pope, who himself tells us 'of his wig all powder
and all snuff his band,' let fly one of his keener arrows at
the beaux, whose wit lay in their snuff-boxes and tweezer
cases. As the men laid by, in the Georgian era, much of the
magnificence of their attire, so their snuff-boxes became
plainer and decidedly uglier. Rushing into an opposite
extreme, the most outrageous receptacles for the precious
dust were devised. Boxes in the shape of bibles, boots,
shoes, toads, and coffins outraged public taste. The
strangest materials were used in their construction; the
public taste leaning towards relics possessing historical
interest. Thus the mulberry tree planted by Shakespeare, the
hull of the Royal George, in which 'brave Kempenfelt went
down, with twice four hundred men,' and the deck of the
Victory, on which Nelson died 'for England, home, and
beauty,' have alone been supposed to supply material for
snuff-boxes to an extent which, if known, must considerably
weaken the faith of their possessors in their genuineness.

[Illustration: Fancy snuff-boxes.]

"Nor has snuff itself been less liable to the rule of
fashion than the boxes that held it. We will give a few
familiar instances. In the naval engagement of Viga, in
1703, when a large Spanish fleet was taken or destroyed, a
great quantity of musty snuff was made prize of, and
patriotism ran high