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Tobacco History:
The Social History of Smoking
by George Latimer Apperson
First published in 1914

In this "Report" Hariot says of the tobacco plant: "There is an herbe which is sowed a part by itselfe and is called by the inhabitants Vppówoc: In the West Indies it hath divers names, according to the severall places and countries where it groweth and is used: The Spaniardes generally call it Tobacco. The leaves thereof being dried and brought into powder: they use to take the fume or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of claie into their stomacke and heade: from whence it purgeth superfluous fleame and other grosse humors, openeth all the pores and passages of the body: by which meanes the use thereof, not only preserveth the body from obstructions: but if also any be, so that they have not beane of too long continuance, in short time breaketh them: wherby their bodies are notably preserved in health, and know not many greevous diseases wherewithall wee in England are oftentimes afflicted."

So far Hariot's "Report" regarded tobacco from the medicinal point of view only; but it is important to note that he goes on to describe his personal experience of the practice of smoking in words that suggest the pleasurable nature of the experience. He says: "We ourselves during the time we were there used to suck it after their maner, as also since our returne, and have found maine [? manie] rare and wonderful experiments of the vertues thereof: of which the relation woulde require a volume by itselfe: the use of it by so manie of late, men and women of great calling as else, and some learned Physitians also, is sufficient witness."

Who can doubt that Hariot, in reporting direct to Sir Walter Raleigh, showed his employer how "to suck it after their maner"?

All the evidence agrees that whoever taught Raleigh, it was Raleigh's example that brought smoking into notice and common use. Long before his death in 1618 it had become fashionable, as we shall see, in all ranks of society. He is said to have smoked a pipe on the morning of his execution, before he went to the scaffold, a tradition which is quite credible.

Every one knows the legend of the water (or beer) thrown over Sir Walter by his servant when he first saw his master smoking, and imagined he was on fire. The story was first associated with Raleigh by a writer in 1708 in a magazine called the British Apollo. According to this yarn Sir Walter usually "indulged himself in Smoaking secretly, two pipes a Day; at which time, he order'd a Simple Fellow, who waited, to bring him up a Tankard of old Ale and Nutmeg, always laying aside the Pipe, when he heard his servant coming." On this particular occasion, however, the pipe was not laid aside in time, and the "Simple Fellow," imagining his master was on fire, as he saw the smoke issuing from his mouth, promptly put the fire out by sousing him with the contents of the tankard. One difficulty about this story is the alleged secrecy of Raleigh's indulgence in tobacco. There seems to be no imaginable reason why he should not have smoked openly. Later versions turn the ale into water and otherwise vary the story.

But the story was a stock jest long before it was associated with Raleigh. The earliest example of it occurs in the "Jests" attributed to Richard Tarleton, the famous comic performer of the Elizabethan stage, who died in 1588—the year of the Armada. "Tarlton's Jests" appeared in 1611, and the story in question, which is headed "How Tarlton tooke tobacco at the first comming up of it," runs as follows:

"Tarlton, as other gentlemen used, at the first comming up of tobacco, did take it more for fashion's sake than otherwise, and being in a roome, set between two men overcome with wine, and they never seeing the like, wondered at it, and seeing the vapour come out of Tarlton's nose, cryed out, fire, fire, and threw a cup of wine in Tarlton's face. Make no more stirre, quoth Tarlton, the fire is quenched: if the sheriffes come, it will turne to a fine, as the custome is. And drinking that againe, fie, sayes the other, what a stinke it makes; I am almost poysoned. If it offend, saies Tarlton, let every one take a little of the smell, and so the savour will quickly goe: but tobacco whiffes made them leave him to pay all."