Note Back to Main Text — Chapter IV

The writers of this period abound in allusions to tobacco and its use. The poets and dramatists found in it a fertile field for the display of their satire, and from 1600 to 1650 stage plays introduced many characters as either tobacco drinkers or sellers. It had now become so great a custom and had increased so fast after the importation of Virginia tobacco that it afforded them no insignificant theme for the display of their genius.[41] The plays of Jonson, Decker, Rowland, Heywood, Middleton, Fields, Fletcher, Hutton, Lodge, Sharpham, Marston, Lilly (court poet to Elizabeth), the Duke of Newcastle and others are full of allusions to the plant and those who indulged in its use. Shakespeare,[42] however, does not once allude to its use, and his silence on this then curious custom has provoked much conjecture and inquiry. Some affirm that he wrote to please royalty, but if so why did he not condemn the custom to appease the wrath of a sapient king. Others say he kept silence because he was the friend of Raleigh, and though he would have gladly held up the great smoker and his favorite indulgence, feared to add to the popularity of the custom by displeasing his royal master. Another class affirm that as the stories of his plays are all antecedent to his own time, therefore he never mentions either the drinking of tobacco, or the tumultuous scenes of the ordinary which belonged to it, and which are so constantly met with in his contemporary dramatists. Says one: