The Social History of Smoking Part 6

Smoking was universal among their male parishioners from the squire to the labourer (when he could afford it), so that it was only natural that the parson, with little to do, and in those days not too much inclination to do it, should be as fond of his pipe as the rest of the world around him. In a _World_ of 1756 there is an account of a country gentleman entertaining one evening the vicar of the parish, and the host as a matter of course proceeds to order a bottle of wine with pipes and tobacco to be placed on the table. The vicar forthwith "filled his pipe, and drank very cordially to my friend," his host.

One cannot doubt that Laurence Sterne, that most remarkable of country parsons, smoked. His "My Uncle Toby" is among the immortals, and Toby without his pipe is unimaginable.

The most famous of country clergymen of the early Georgian period is, of course, Fielding's lovable and immortal Parson Adams. Throughout "Joseph Andrews" the parson smokes at every opportunity. At his first appearance on the scene, in the inn kitchen, he calls for a pipe of tobacco before taking his place at the fireside. The next morning, when he fails to obtain a desired loan from the landlord, Adams, extremely dejected at his disappointment, immediately applies to his pipe, "his constant friend and comfort in his affliction," and leans over the rails of the gallery overlooking the inn-yard, devoting himself to meditation, "a.s.sisted by the inspiring fumes of tobacco."

Later on, in the parlour of the country Justice of the Peace, who condemned his prisoners before he had taken the depositions of the witnesses against them, and who, by the way, also lit his pipe while his clerk performed this necessary duty, Adams, when his character has been cleared, sits down with the company and takes a cheerful gla.s.s and applies himself vigorously to smoking. A few hours later, when the parson, f.a.n.n.y, and their guide are driven by a storm of rain to take shelter in a wayside ale-house, Adams "immediately procured himself a good fire, a toast and ale, and a pipe, and began to smoke with great content, utterly forgetting everything that had happened." In the same inn, after Mrs. Slipslop has appeared and disappeared, Adams smokes three pipes and takes "a comfortable nap in a great chair," so leaving the lovers, Joseph and f.a.n.n.y, to enjoy a delightful time together.

At another inn a country squire is discovered smoking his pipe by the door and the parson promptly joins him. Again, he smokes before he goes to bed, and before he breakfasts the next morning; and when he goes into the inn garden with the host who is willing to trust him, both host and parson light their pipes before beginning to gossip.

Farther on, when the hospitable Mr. Wilson takes the weary wayfarers in, Parson Adams loses no time in filling himself with ale, as Fielding puts it, and lighting his pipe. The menfolk--Wilson, Adams and Joseph--have to spend the night seated round the fire, but apparently Adams is the only one who seeks the solace of tobacco. It is significant that Wilson, in telling the story of his dissipated early life, cla.s.ses smoking with "singing, holloaing, wrangling, drinking, toasting," and other diversions of "jolly companions."

There is no mention of Parson Trulliber's pipe, but that pig-breeder and lover can hardly have been a non-smoker. Both the other clerical characters who appear in the book, the Roman Catholic priest who makes an equivocal appearance in the eighth chapter of the third book, and Parson Barnabas, who thinks that his own sermons are at least equal to Tillotson's, smoke their pipes. The other smokers in "Joseph Andrews"

are the surgeon and the exciseman who, early in the story, are found sitting in the inn kitchen with Parson Barnabas, "smoking their pipes over some syderand"--the mysterious "cup" being a mixture of cider and something spirituous--and Joseph's father, old Gaffer Andrews, who appears at the end of the story, and complains bitterly that he wants his pipe, not having had a whiff that morning.

Fielding himself smoked his pipe. When his play "The Wedding Day" was produced by Garrick in 1743, various suggestions were made to the author as to the excision of certain pa.s.sages, and the modification of one of the scenes. Garrick pressed for certain omissions, but--"No, d.a.m.n them," said Fielding, "if the scene is not a good one, let them find that out"; and then, according to Murphy, he retired to the green-room, where, during the progress of the play, he smoked his pipe and drank champagne. Presently he heard the sound of hissing, and when Garrick came in and explained that the audience had hissed the scene he had wished to have modified, all Fielding said was: "Oh, d.a.m.n them, they _have_ found it out, have they!"

Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, the crafty old Jacobite who took part in the rising of 1745 and who was executed on Tower Hill in 1747, was a smoker. The pipe which he was reported to have smoked on the evening before his execution, together with his snuff-box and a canvas tobacco-bag, were for many years in the possession of the Society of Cogers, the famous debating society of Fleet Street.

It has sometimes been said that Swift smoked; but this is a mistake.

He had a fancy for taking tobacco in a slightly different way from the fashionable mode of taking snuff. He told Stella that he had left off snuff altogether, and then in the very next sentence remarked that he had "a n.o.ble roll of tobacco for grating, very good." And in a later letter to Stella, May 24, 1711, he asked if she still snuffed, and went on to say, in sentences that seem to contradict one another: "I have left it off, and when anybody offers me their box, I take about a tenth part of what I used to do, then just smell to it, and privately fling the rest away. I keep to my tobacco still, as you say; but even much less of that than formerly, only mornings and evenings, and very seldom in the day." One might infer from this that he smoked, but this Swift never did. His practice was to snuff up cut and dried tobacco, which was sometimes just coloured with Spanish snuff. This he did all his life, but as the mixture he took was not technically snuff, he never owned that he took snuff.

Another cleric of the period, well known to fame, who took snuff but also loved his pipe, was Samuel Wesley, rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire, from 1697 to 1735. He not only smoked his pipe, but sang its praises:

_In these raw mornings, when I'm freezing ripe, What can compare with a tobacco-pipe?

Primed, c.o.c.ked and toucht, 'twould better heat a man Than ten Bath f.a.ggots or Scotch warming-pan._

Samuel's greater son, John Wesley, did not share the parental love of a pipe. He spoke of the use of tobacco as "an uncleanly and unwholesome self-indulgence," and described snuffing as "a silly, nasty, dirty custom."

The London clergy seem to have smoked at one time as a matter of course at their gatherings at Sion College, their headquarters. An entry in the records under date February 14, 1682, relating to a Court Meeting, runs: "Paid Maddocks [the Messenger] for Attendinge and Pipes 6d." How long pipes continued to be concomitants of the meetings of the College's General Court I cannot say; but smoking and the annual dinners were long a.s.sociated. At the anniversary feast in 1743 there were two tables to provide for, the total number of guests being about thirty, and two "corses" to each. The cost of the food, as Canon Pearce tells us in his excellent and entertaining book on the College and its Library, was 19 15s., or rather more than 13s. a head.

The bill for wines and tobacco amounted to five guineas, or about 3s. 6d. a head, and for this modest sum the thirty convives enjoyed eleven gallons of "Red Oporto," one of "White Lisbon," and three of "Mountain," to the accompaniment of two pounds of tobacco (at 3s. 4d. the pound) smoked in "half a groce of pipes" (at 1s.).

The examples and ill.u.s.trations which have been given so far in this chapter relate to tradesmen and merchants, country gentlemen and the clergy. Other professional men smoked--we read in Fielding's "Amelia"

of a doctor who in the evening "smoked his pillow-pipe, as the phrase is"--and among the rest of the people of equal or lower social standing smoking was as generally practised as in the preceding century. Handel, I may note, enjoyed his pipe. Dr. Burney, when a schoolboy at Chester, was "extremely curious to see so extraordinary a man," so when Handel went through that city in 1741 on his way to Ireland, young Burney "watched him narrowly as long as he remained in Chester," and among other things, had the felicity of seeing the great man "smoke a pipe, over a dish of coffee, at the Exchange Coffee-house," which was under the old Town Hall that stood opposite the present King's School, and in front of the present Town Hall.

Gonzales, in his "Voyage to Great Britain," 1731, says that the use of tobacco was "very universal, and indeed not improper for so moist a climate." He tells us that though the taverns were very numerous yet the ale-houses were much more so. These ale-houses were visited by the inferior tradesmen, mechanics, journeymen, porters, coachmen, carmen, servants, and others whose pockets were not equal to the price of a gla.s.s of wine, which, apparently, was the more usual thing to call for at a tavern, properly so called. In the ale-house men of the various cla.s.ses and occupations enumerated, says the traveller, would "sit promiscuously in common dirty rooms, with large fires, and clouds of tobacco, where one that is not used to them can scarce breathe or see."

The antiquary Hearne has left on record an account of a curious smoking match held at Oxford in 1723. It began at two o'clock in the afternoon of September 4 on a scaffold specially erected for the purpose "over against the Theatre in Oxford ... just at Finmore's, an alehouse." The conditions were that any one (man or woman) who could smoke out three ounces of tobacco first, without drinking or going off the stage, should have 12s. "Many tryed," continues Hearne, "and 'twas thought that a journeyman taylour of St. Peter's in the East would have been victor, he smoking faster than, and being many pipes before, the rest: but at last he was so sick, that 'twas thought he would have dyed; and an old man, that had been a souldier, and smoaked gently, came off conqueror, smoaking the three ounces quite out, and he told one (from whom I had it) that, after it, he smoaked 4 or 5 pipes the same evening." The old soldier was a well-seasoned veteran.

Another foreign visitor to England, the Abbe Le Blanc, who was over here about 1730, found English customs rather trying. "Even at table,"

he says, "where they serve desserts, they do but show them, and presently take away everything, even to the tablecloth. By this the English, whom politeness does not permit to tell the ladies their company is troublesome, give them notice to retire.... The table is immediately covered with mugs, bottles and gla.s.ses; and often with pipes of tobacco. All things thus disposed, the ceremony of toasts begins."

The frowns and remonstrances of Quarterly and Monthly Meetings of Friends had not succeeded in putting the Quakers' pipes out. In a list of sea stores put on board a vessel called by the un-Quaker-like name of _The Charming Polly_, which brought a party of Friends across the Atlantic from Philadelphia in 1756, we find "In Samuel Fothergill's new chest ... Tobacco ... a Hamper ... a Barrel ... a box of pipes."

The provident Samuel was well found for a long voyage.

The non-smokers were the men of fashion and those who followed them in preferring the snuff-box to the pipe. Sometimes, apparently, they chewed. A _World_ of 1754 pokes fun at the "pretty" young men who "take pains to appear manly. But alas! the methods they pursue, like most mistaken applications, rather aggravate the calamity. Their drinking and raking only makes them look like old maids. Their swearing is almost as shocking as it would be in the other s.e.x. Their chewing tobacco not only offends, but makes us apprehensive at the same time that the poor things will be sick," as they certainly well deserved to be. To chew might be "manly," but it will be observed that smoking is not mentioned. No reputation for manliness could be achieved by even the affectation of a pipe. Similarly, in Bramston's "Man of Taste," various fashionable tastes are described, but there is no mention of tobacco.

In Townley's well-known two-act farce "High Life Below Stairs," 1759, the servants take their masters' and mistresses' t.i.tles and ape their ways. The menservants--the Dukes and Sir Harrys--offer one another snuff. "Taste this snuff, Sir Harry," says the "Duke." "'Tis good rappee," replies "Sir Harry." "Right Strasburgh, I a.s.sure you, and of my own importing," says the knowing ducal valet. "The city people adulterate it so confoundedly," he continues, "that I always import my own snuff;" and in similar vein he goes on in imitation of his master, the genuine Duke. These servants copy the talk and style (with a difference) of their employers; but smoking is never mentioned. The real Dukes and Sir Harrys took snuff with a grace, but they did not do anything so low as to smoke, and their menservants faithfully aped their preferences and their aversions.

Negative evidence of this kind is abundant; and positive statements of the aversion of the beaux from smoking are not lacking. Dodsley's "Collection" contains a satirical poem called "A Pipe of Tobacco,"

which was written in imitation of six different poets. The author was Isaac Hawkins Browne, and the poets imitated were the Laureate Cibber, Philips, Thomson, Young, Pope, and Swift. The first imitation is called "A New Year's Ode," and contains three recitatives, three airs and a chorus. One of the airs will suffice as a sample:

_Happy mortal! he who knows Pleasure which a Pipe bestows; Curling eddies climb the room Wafting round a mild perfume._

Number two, which was intended as a burlesque of Philips's "Splendid Shilling," is really pretty and must be given entire. It reveals unsuspected beauties in the simple "churchwarden," or "yard of clay":

_Little tube of mighty pow'r, Charmer of an idle hour, Object of my warm desire, Lip of wax, and eye of fire: And thy snowy taper waist, With my finger gently brac'd; And thy pretty swelling crest, With my little stopper prest, And the sweetest bliss of blisses, Breathing from thy balmy kisses.

Happy thrice, and thrice agen, Happiest he of happy men; Who when agen the night returns, When agen the taper burns; When agen the cricket's gay, (Little cricket, full of play) Can afford his tube to feed With the fragrant Indian weed: Pleasure for a nose divine, Incense of the G.o.d of wine.

Happy thrice, and thrice agen, Happiest he of happy men._

Imitations three and five praise the leaf in less happy strains, though number five has a line worth noting for our purpose, in which tobacco is spoken of as

_By ladies hated, hated by the beaux._

The sixth sinks to ribaldry. Number four contains evidence of the distaste for smoking among the beaux in the lines:

_c.o.xcombs prefer the tickling sting of snuff; Yet all their claim to wisdom is--a puff; Lord Foplin smokes not--for his teeth afraid: Sir Tawdry smokes not--for he wears brocade.

Ladies, when pipes are brought, affect to swoon; They love no smoke, except the smoke of Town; But courtiers hate the puffing tube--no matter, Strange if they love the breath that cannot flatter!_ * * * * * * *

_Yet crowds remain, who still its worth proclaim, While some for pleasure smoke, and some for Fame._

The satirist wrote truly that after all the fashionable abstainers had been deducted, crowds remained, who smoked as heartily as their predecessors of a century earlier. The populace was still on the side of tobacco. This was well shown in 1732 when Sir Robert Walpole proposed special excise duties on tobacco, and brought a Bill into Parliament which would have given his excis.e.m.e.n powers of inquisition which were much resented by the people generally. The controversy produced a host of squibs and caricatures, most of which were directed against the measure. The Bill was defeated in 1733, and great and general were the rejoicings. When the news reached Derby on April 19 in that year, the dealers in tobacco caused all the bells in the Derby churches to be rung, and we may be sure that this rather unusual performance was highly popular. The withdrawal of the odious duty was further celebrated by caricatures and "poetical" chants of triumph.

One of the leading opponents of the Bill had been a well-known puffing tobacconist named Bradley, who was accustomed to describe his wares as "the best in Christendom"; and when the Bill was defeated Bradley's portrait was published for popular circulation, above these lines:

_Behold the man, who, when a gloomy band Of vile excis.e.m.e.n threatened all the land, Help'd to deliver from their harpy gripe The cheerful bottle and the social pipe.

O rare Ben Bradley! may for this the bowl, Still_ unexcised, _rejoice thy honest soul!

May still_ the best in Christendom _for this Cleave to thy stopper, and compleat thy bliss!_

This print is now chiefly of interest because the plate was adorned with a tiny etching by Hogarth, in which appear the figures of the British Lion and Britannia, both with pipes in their mouths, Britannia being seated on a cask of tobacco.

Hogarth was fond of introducing the pipe into his plates. In the tail-piece to his works, which he prepared a few months before his death, and which he called _The Bathos, or Manner of Sinking in Sublime Paintings_, the end of everything is represented. Time himself, supported against a broken column, is expiring, his scythe falling from his grasp and a long clay pipe breaking in two as it falls from his lips. This was issued in 1764--Hogarth's last published work. In the plate which shows the execution of Thomas Idle, in the "Industry and Idleness" series, Hogarth depicts the little hangman smoking a short pipe as he sits on the top of the gallows, waiting for his victim. The familiar plate of _A Modern Midnight Conversation_ shows a parson in surplice and wig smoking like a furnace while he ladles punch from a bowl--probably meant for a portrait of the notorious Orator Henley. Most of the other guests are also shown smoking long clay pipes.

Hogarth's subscription ticket for the print of _Sigismunda_ was _Time Smoking a Picture_ (1761). It represents an old man sitting on a fragment of statuary and smoking a long pipe against a picture of a landscape which stands upon an easel before him. Below, on his left, is a large jar labelled "Varnish." The figure of Time is nude and has large wings. Volumes of smoke are pouring against the surface of the picture from both his mouth and the bowl of his long clay pipe. In _The Stage-Coach, or Country Inn-yard_, is shown an old woman smoking a pipe in the "basket" of the coach. The plate of _The Distrest Poet_ (1736) shows four books and three tobacco-pipes on a shelf. In the second of the "Election" series--the _Canva.s.sing for Votes_ (1755)--a barber and a cobbler, seated at the table in the right-hand corner, are both smoking long pipes. Apparently they are discussing the taking of Portobello by Admiral Vernon in 1739 with only six ships; for the barber is ill.u.s.trating his talk by pointing with his twisted pipe-stem to six fragments which he has broken from the stem and arranged on the table in the shape of a crescent. In the frontispiece which Hogarth drew in 1762 for Garrick's farce of "The Farmer's Return from London,"

the worthy farmer, seated in his great chair, holds out a large mug in one hand to be filled with ale, while the other supports his long pipe, which he is smoking with evident enjoyment.

Hogarth himself was a confirmed pipe-lover. When he and Thornhill and their three companions set out from Gravesend for the final stage, up the river, of their famous "Five Days Peregrination," we are told that they hired a boat with clean straw, and laid in a bottle of wine, pipes, tobacco, and light, and so came merrily up the river. The arm-chair in which Hogarth was wont to sit and smoke is still preserved in his house at Chiswick, which has been bought and preserved as a memorial of the moralist-painter; and in the garden of the house may still be seen the remains of the mulberry tree under which Mr. Austin Dobson suggests that Hogarth and Fielding may have sat and smoked their pipes together in the days when George was King.

VIII

SMOKING UNFASHIONABLE (_continued_): LATER GEORGIAN DAYS

Says the Pipe to the Snuff-box, I can't understand What the ladies and gentlemen see in your face, That you are in fashion all over the land, And I am so much fallen into disgrace.

WILLIAM COWPER.

(From a letter to the Rev. John Newton, May 28, 1782.)

"Smoking has gone out," said Johnson in talk at St. Andrews, one day in 1773. "To be sure," he continued, "it is a shocking thing, blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes and noses, and having the same thing done to us; yet I cannot account why a thing which requires so little exertion, and yet preserves the mind from total vacuity, should have gone out." Johnson did not trouble himself to think of how much the vagaries of fashion account for stranger vicissitudes in manners and customs than the rise and fall of the smoking-habit; nor did he probably foresee how slowly but surely the taste for smoking, even in the circles most influenced by fashion, would revive. Boswell tells us that although the sage himself never smoked, yet he had a high opinion of the practice as a sedative influence; and Hawkins heard him say on one occasion that insanity had grown more frequent since smoking had gone out of fashion, which shows that even Johnson could fall a victim to the _post hoc propter hoc_ fallacy.

More than one writer of recent days has absurdly misrepresented Johnson as a smoker. The author of a book on tobacco published a few years ago wrote--"Dr. Johnson smoked like a furnace"--a grotesquely untrue statement--and "all his friends, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, were his companions in tobacco-worship." Reynolds, we know--