use of the labors of the industrious compiler. Such collections are
often the result of wide reading and patient labor. Frequently the
larger part is made up of single poems, the happy and perhaps only
inspiration of the writer, gleaned from the poet's corner of the
newspaper or the pages of a magazine. This is specially true of the
present compilation, the first on the subject aiming at anything like
completeness. Brief collections of prose and poetry combined have
already been published; but so much of value has been omitted that
there seemed to be room for a better book. A vast amount has been
written in praise of tobacco, much of it commonplace or lacking in
poetic quality. While some of the verse here gathered is an obvious
echo, or passes into unmistakable parody, it has been the aim of
the compiler to maintain, as far as possible, a high standard and
include only the best. From the days of Raleigh to the present
time, literature abounds in allusions to tobacco. The Elizabethan
writers constantly refer to it, often in praise though sometimes
in condemnation. The incoming of the "Indian weed" created a great
furore, and scarcely any other of the New World discoveries was talked
about so much. Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Fletcher, Spenser, Dekker, and
many other of the poets and dramatists of the time, make frequent
reference to it; and no doubt at the Mermaid tavern, pipes and tobacco
found a place beside the sack and ale. Singular to say, Shakespeare
makes no reference to it; and only once in his essay "Of Plantations,"
as far as the compiler has been able to discover, does Bacon speak
of it. Shakespeare's silence has been explained on the theory that
he could not introduce any reference to the newly discovered plant
without anachronism; but he did not often let a little thing of this
kind stand in his way. It has been suggested, on the other hand, that
he avoided all reference to it out of deference to King James I.,
who wrote the famous "Counterblast." Whichever theory is correct,