Note Back to Main Text — Chapter IV

"Tobacco," says Loudon, "was introduced into the county of Cork, with the potatoe, by Sir Walter Raleigh." A quaint writer of this period says of the plant: "Tobacco, that excellent plant, the use whereof (as of fifth element) the world cannot want, is that little shop of Nature, wherein her whole workmanship is abridged; where you may see earth kindled into fire, the fire breathe out an exhalation, which entering in at the mouth walks through the regions of a man's brain, drives out all ill vapors but itself, draws down all bad humors by the mouth, which in time might breed a scab over the whole body, if already they have not; a plant of singular use; for, on the one side Nature being an enemy to vacuity and emptiness and on the other, there being so many empty brains in the world as there are, how shall Nature's course be continued? How shall those empty brains be filled but with air, Nature's immediate instrument to that purpose? If with air, what so proper as your fume; what fume so healthful as your perfume, what perfume so sovereign as tobacco. Besides the excellent edge it gives a man's wit, as they but judge that have been present at a feast of tobacco, where commonly all good wits are consoled; what variety of discourse it begets, what sparks of wit it yields?"[33]