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