the fact remains, and it may be an interesting contribution to the
Bacon-Shakespeare controversy. Queen Elizabeth never showed any
hostility to tobacco; but her successors, James I. and the two
Charleses, and Cromwell were its bitter opponents. Notwithstanding
its enemies, who just as fiercely opposed the introduction of tea
and coffee, its use spread over Europe and the world, and prince
and peasant alike yielded to its mild but irresistible sway. Poets
and philosophers drew solace and inspiration from the pipe. Milton,
Addison, Fielding, Hobbes, and Newton were all smokers. It is said
Newton was smoking under a tree in his garden when the historic apple
fell. Scott, Campbell, Byron, Hood, and Lamb all smoked, and Carlyle
and Tennyson were rarely without a pipe in their mouths. The great
novelists, Thackeray, Dickens, and Bulwer were famous smokers; and so
were the great soldiers, Napoleon, Blücher, and Grant. While nearly
all the poems here gathered together were written, and perhaps could
only have been written, by smokers, several among the best are the
work of authors who never use the weed,--one by a man, two or three
by women. Among the more recent writers there has been no more devoted
smoker than Mr. Lowell, as his recently published letters testify.
Three of the most delightful poems in praise of smoking are his, and
with Mr. Aldrich's charming "Latakia" are the gems of the collection.
The compiler desires to express his grateful acknowledgments to
friends who have permitted him to use their work and have otherwise
aided him from time to time; and to the many unknown authors whose
poems are here gathered, and whom it was quite impossible to reach;
and to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Company, Harper & Brothers, The
Bowen-Merrill Company, and the publishers of "Outlook," for their
gracious permission to include copyrighted poems.

J.K.