Tobacco History:
The Social History of Smoking
by George Latimer Apperson
First published in 1914
"The Social History of Smoking" by George Latimer Apperson, can be purchased at Amazon.com in two different versions. Depending on the quality of the edition, prices range between $35 and $104.
From Chapter 2: The rich young gallant carried about with him his tobacco apparatus (often of gold or silver) in the form of tobacco-box, tobacco-tongs—wherewith to lift a live coal to light his pipe, ladle "for the cold snuffe into the nosthrill," and priming-iron. Sometimes the tobacco-box was of ivory; and occasionally a gallant would have looking-glass set in his box, so that when he took it out to obtain tobacco, he could at the same time have a view of his own delectable person. When our gallant went to dine at the ordinary, according to the custom of the time, he brought out these possessions, and smoked while the dinner was being served. Before dinner, after taking a few turns up and down Paul's Walk in the old cathedral, he might look into the booksellers' shops, and, pipe in mouth, inquire for the most recent attack upon the "divine weed"—the contemporary tobacco literature was abundant—or drop into an apothecary's, which was usually a tobacco-shop also, and there meet his fellow- smokers.
From Chapter 6: Other well-known men of the late seventeenth century were "tobacconists" in the old sense of the word. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have smoked immoderately; and a familiar anecdote represents him as using for the purposes of a tobacco-stopper, in a fit of absent-mindedness, the little finger of a lady sitting beside him, whom he admired, but the truth of this legend is open to doubt. Thomas Hobbes, who lived to be ninety (1588-1679), was accustomed to dine at 11 o'clock, after which he smoked a pipe and then lay down and took a nap of about half an hour. No doubt he would have attributed the length of his days to the regularity of his habits. Izaak Walton, who also lived to be ninety, as the lover of the placid and contemplative life deserved to do, loved his pipe, though he seldom mentions smoking in the "Compleat Angler." Sir Samuel Garth, poet and physician, once known to fame as the author of "The Dispensary," was another pipe-lover, as is shown by his verses quoted at the head of this chapter. Dudley, the fourth Lord North, began to smoke in 1657, and, says Dr. Jessopp, "the habit grew upon him, the frequent entries for pipes and tobacco showing that he became more and more addicted to this indulgence. Probably it afforded him some solace in the dreadful malady from which he suffered so long."
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