Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 7:

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 god of wine.
Happy thrice, and thrice agen,
Happiest he of happy men.

Coxcombs 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.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 11:

Apart from cigarette-smoking, however, the use of tobacco grew steadily during the later Victorian period. In "Mr. Punch's Pocket-Book" for 1878 there was a burlesque dialogue between uncle and nephew entitled "Cupid and 'Baccy." The uncle thinks the younger men smoke too much, and declares that tobacco "has destroyed the susceptibility, which in my time made youngsters fall in love, as they often did, with a girl without a penny. No fellow can fall in love when he has continually a pipe in his mouth; and if he ever feels inclined to when it would be imprudent, why he lights his pipe, and very soon smokes the idea of such folly out of his head. Not so when I was of your age. Besides a few old farmers, churchwardens, and overseers, and such, nobody then ever smoked but labourers and the lower orders-cads as you now say. smoking was thought vulgar. Young men never smoked at all. To smoke in the presence of a lady was an inconceivable outrage; yet now I see you and your friends walking alongside of one another's sisters, smoking a short pipe down the street." "The girls like it," says Nepos. "In my time," replies Avunculus, "young ladies would have fainted at the bare suggestion of such an enormity." The dialogue ends as follows:

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