Aubrey's interesting statements must be given. Writing in the time of
Charles II, he said that he had heard his grandfather say that at
first one pipe was handed from man to man round about the table. "They
had first silver pipes; the ordinary sort made use of a walnut shell
and a straw"--surely a very unsatisfactory pipe. Tobacco in those
earliest days, he says, was sold for its weight in silver. "I have
heard some of our old yeomen neighbours say that when they went to
Malmesbury or Chippenham Market, they culled out their biggest
shillings to lay in the scales against the tobacco."




II

TOBACCO TRIUMPHANT: SMOKING FASHIONABLE AND UNIVERSAL

Tobacco engages
Both sexes, all ages,
The poor as well as the wealthy;
From the court to the cottage,
From childhood to dotage,
Both those that are sick and the healthy.

_Wits' Recreations_, 1640.


This chapter and the next deal with the history of smoking during the
first fifty years after its introduction as a social habit--roughly to
1630.