Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce Part 22

"The animal frequently indulged in a little restive curvetting with its master, especially when the latter was about to get into the saddle. 'Come, come,' he would say, on such occasions, addressing the animal in his usual quiet way, 'hae dune, noo, for ye'll no like if I come across your lugs (ears) wi' the stick.'

"Even in his old age Mr. Gillespie regularly superintended the operations in the mill, which was situated in the rear of his house. On these occasions he was wrapped in an old blanket ingrained with snuff. Though he kept a carriage he very seldom used it, until shortly before his death, when increasing infirmities caused him occasionally to take a drive. It was of this carriage, plain and neat in its design, with nothing on its panel but the initials 'J. G.'

that the witty Henry Erskine proposed the couplet--

'Who would have thought it That noses had bought it?'

as an appropriate motto. In those days snuff was much more extensively used than at present, and Mr. Gillespie was in the habit of gratuitously filling the 'mulls' of many of the Edinburgh characters of the last century. Colinton appears to have been a great snuff-making centre. About thirty years ago there were five snuff mills in operation in the parish, the produce of which was sold in Edinburgh. Even now a considerable quant.i.ty of snuff is made in the district, chiefly by grinders to the trade."

Murray, alluding to the popularity of the custom in England during the reign of the House of Brunswick, says:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fops taking snuff. (_From an old print_).]

"The reigns of the four Georges may be ent.i.tled the snuffing period of English history. The practice became an appanage of fashion before 1714, as it has continued after 1830, to be the comfort of priests, literary men, highlanders, tailors, factory hands, and old people of both s.e.xes. George IV. was a nasute judge of snuffs, and so enamoured of the delectation, that in each of his palaces he kept a jar chamber, containing a choice a.s.sortment of tobacco powder, presided over by a critical superintendent. His favorite stimulant in the morning was violet Strasburgh, the same which had previously helped Queen Charlotte to 'kill the day'--after dinner Carrotte--named from his _penchant_ for it. King's Carrotte, Martinique, Etrenne, Old Paris, Bureau, Cologne, Bordeaux, Havre, Princeza, Rouen, and Rappee, were placed on the table, in as many rich and curious boxes."

Sterne, in his "Sentimental Journey," gives a pleasing description of snuff-taking with the poor monk. He writes:

"The good old monk was within six paces of us, as the idea of him crossed my mind; and was advancing towards us a little out of the line, as if uncertain whether he should break in upon us or no. He stoop'd, however, as soon as he came up to us with a world of frankness; and having a horn snuff-box in his hand, he presented it open to me.

"'You shall taste mine,' said I, pulling out my box (which was a small tortoise one), and putting it into his hand.

""Tis most excellent,' said the monk.

"'Then do me the favor,' I replied 'to accept of the box and all, and when you take a pinch out of it, sometimes recollect it was the peace-offering of a man who once used you unkindly, but not from his heart.'

"The poor monk blushed as red as scarlet, 'Mon Dieu?' said he, pressing his hands together, 'you never used me unkindly.'

"'I should think,' said the lady, 'he is not likely.'

I blushed in my turn; but from what motives, I leave to the few who feel to a.n.a.lyze. 'Excuse me, madam,' replied I, 'I treated him most unkindly, and from no provocations.'

""Tis impossible,' said the lady.

"'My G.o.d!' cried the monk, with a warmth of a.s.severation which seemed not to belong to him, 'the fault was in me, and in the indiscretion of my zeal.'

"The lady opposed it, and I joined with her in maintaining it was impossible, that a spirit so regulated as his could give offence to any. I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet and pleasurable a thing to the nerves as I then felt it. We remained silent, without any sensation of that foolish pain which takes place when, in a circle, you look for ten minutes in one another's faces without saying a word.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Horn snuff-boxes.]

"Whilst this lasted, the monk rubb'd his horn box upon the sleeve of his tunic; and as soon as it had acquired a little air of brightness by the friction, he made a low bow and said, 'twas too late to say whether it was the weakness or goodness of our tempers which had involved us in this contest, but be it as it would, he begg'd we would exchange boxes. In saying this, he presented this to me with one, as he took mine from me in the other; and having kissed it, with a stream of good nature in his eyes, he put it into his bosom, and took his leave. I guard this box as I would the instrumental parts of my religion, to help my mind on to something better: in truth I seldom go abroad without it; and oft and many a time have I called up by it the courteous spirit of its owner, to regulate my own in the jostlings of the world; they had found full employment for his, as I learnt from his story, till about the forty-fifth year of his age, when upon some military services ill-requited, and meeting at the same time with a disappointment in the tenderest of pa.s.sions, he abandoned the sword and the s.e.x together, and took sanctuary, not so much in his convent as in himself. I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that in my last return through Calais, upon inquiring after Father Lorenzo, I heard he had been dead near three months, and was buried, not in his convent, but according to his desire, in a little cemetery belonging to it about two leagues off. I had a strong desire to see where they had laid him, when, upon pulling out his little horn box, as I sat by his grave, and plucking a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no business to grow there, they all struck together so forcibly upon my affections that I burst into a flood of tears--but I am as weak as a woman; I beg the world not to smile, but pity me."

Many pleasing effusions have been written promoted doubtless by a sneeze among which the following on "A pinch of Snuff" from "The Sportsman Magazine," exhibits the custom and the benefits ascribed to its indulgence.

"With mind or body sore distrest, Or with repeated cares opprest, What sets the aching heart at rest?

A pinch of snuff!

"Or should some sharp and gnawing pain Creep round the noddle of the brain, What puts all things to rights again?

A pinch of snuff!

"When speech and tongue together fail, What helps old ladies in their tale, And adds fresh canva.s.s to their sail?

A pinch of snuff!

"Or when some drowsy parson prays, And still more drowsy people gaze, What opes their eyelids with amaze?

A pinch of snuff!

"A comfort which they can't forsake, What is it some would rather take, Than good roast beef, or rich plum cake?

A pinch of snuff!

"Should two old gossips chance to sit, And sip their slop, and talk of it, What gives a sharpness to their wit?

A pinch of snuff!

"What introduces Whig or Tory, And reconciles them in their story, When each is boasting in his glory?

A pinch of snuff!

"What warms without a conflagration Excites without intoxication, And rouses without irritation?

A pinch of snuff!

"When friendship fades, and fortune's spent, And hope seems gone the way they went, One cheering ray of joy is sent-- A pinch of snuff!

"Then let us sing in praise of snuff!

And call it not such 'horrid stuff,'

At which some frown, and others puff, And seem to flinch.

"But when a friend presents a box, Avoid the scruples and the shocks Of him who laughs and he who mocks, And take a pinch!"

From "Pandora's Box" from which we have already quoted, we extract the following in which the use of snuff is deprecated by the author:

--"now, 'tis by every sort And s.e.x adored, from Billingsgate to court.

But ask a dame 'how oysters sell?' if nice, She begs a pinch before she sets a price.

Go thence to 'Change, inquire the price of Stocks; Before they ope their lips they open first the box.

Next pay a visit to the Temple, where The lawyers live, who gold to Heaven prefer; You'll find them stupify'd to that degree, They'll take a pinch before they'll take their fee.

Then make a step and view the splendid court, Where all the gay, the great, the good resort; E'en they, whose pregnant skulls, though large and thick, Can scarce secure their native sense and wit, Are feeding of their hungry souls with pure Ambrosial snuff. * * * *

But to conclude: the gaudy court resign, T' observe, for once, a place much more divine, When the same folly's acted by the good, And is the sole devotion of the lewd; The church, more sacred once, is what we mean, Where now they flock to see and to be seen; The box is used, the book laid by, as dead, With snuff, not Scripture, there the soul is fed; For where to heaven the hands by one of those, Are lifted, twenty have them at the nose; And while some pray, to be from sudden death Deliver'd, others snuff to stop their breath."

Paolo Mantegazza, one of the most brilliant and witty of Italian writers on tobacco, says of its use and "some of the delights that may be imagined through the sense of smell:"--

"Human civilization has not yet learned to found on the sense of smell aught but the moderate enjoyment derived from snuffing, which, confined within the narrow circle of a few sensations, renders us incapable of entering into the most delicate pleasures of that sense.

"Snuff procures us the rapture of a tactile irritation, of a slight perfume; but, above all, it furnishes the charm of an intermittent occupation which soothes us by interrupting, from time to time, our labor. At other times it renders idleness less insupportable to us, by breaking it into the infinite intervals which pa.s.s from one pinch of snuff to another. Sometimes our snuff-box arouses us from torpor and drowsiness; sometimes, it occupies our hands when in society we do not know where to put them or what to do with them.

Finally, snuff and snuffing are things which we can love, because they are always with us; and we can season them with a little vanity if we possess a snuff-box of silver or of gold, which we open continually before those who humbly content themselves with snuff-boxes of bone or of wood. We gladly concede the pleasures of snuffing to men of all conditions, and to ladies who, having pa.s.sed a certain age, or who, being deformed, have no longer any s.e.x; but we solemnly and resolutely refuse the snuff-box to young and beautiful women, who ought to preserve their delicate and pretty noses for the odors of the mignonette and the rose."

With royalty snuff has been a prime favorite. Charles III. of Spain had a great predilection for rappee snuff, but only indulged his inclination by stealth, and particularly while shooting, when he imagined himself to be unnoticed. Frederick the Great and Napoleon[61]

both loved and used large quant.i.ties of the "pungent dust." Of the former the following anecdote is related:--

[Footnote 61: Napoleon, having been unable to undergo the ordeal of a first pipe, stigmatized it us a habit only fit to amuse sluggards. What he renounced in smoking, however, he compensated in snuff.]

"The cynical temper of Frederick the Great is well known.

Once when his sister, the d.u.c.h.ess of Brunswick, was at Potsdam, Frederick made to the brave Count Schwerin the present of a gold snuff-box. On the lid inside was painted the head of an a.s.s. Next day, when dining with the king, Schwerin, with some ostentation, put his snuff-box on the table. Wishing to turn the joke against Schwerin, the king called attention to the snuff-box. The d.u.c.h.ess took it up and opened it. Immediately she exclaimed, 'What a striking likeness! In truth, brother, this is one of the best portraits I have ever seen of you.' Frederick, embarra.s.sed, thought his sister was carrying the jest too far. She pa.s.sed the box to her neighbor, who uttered similar expressions to her own. The box made the round of the table, and every one was fervently eloquent about the marvelous resemblance. The king was puzzled what to make of all this. When the box at last reached his hands, he saw, to his great surprise, that his portrait was really there. Count Schwerin had simply, with exceeding dispatch, employed an artist to remove the a.s.s's head, and to paint the king's head instead. Frederick could not help laughing at the Count's clever trick, which was really the best rebuke of his own bad taste and want of proper and respectful feeling."

"As Frederick William I., of Prussia, was eminently the Smoking King, so his son Frederick the Great was eminently the Snuffing King. Perhaps smoking harmonizes best with action; and it might, without much stretch of fancy, be shown that as the Prussian monarchy was founded on tobacco smoke, it flourished on snuff. Possibly, if Napoleon the Great, who like Frederick the Great, was an excessive snuffer, had smoked as well as snuffed, he might have preserved his empire from overthrow, seeing that smoking steadies and snuffing impels. The influences of smoking and snuffing on politics and war are ascertainable. What the effect of chewing is on political and military affairs, it is not so easy to discover. We recommend the subject for meditation to the profoundest metaphysicians. How many of the American politicians and generals have been chewers as well as snuffers and smokers? Is there to be some mysterious affinity between chewing and the revolutions, especially the social revolutions of the future? May not apocalyptic interpreters be able to show that chewing is the symbol of anarchy and annihilation?"