Notes and Queries, Number 40, August 3, 1850

The rapid dissemination of tobacco, as also of forms and ceremonies connected with its use; its already very extensive cultivation in the remotest parts of the continent and islands of Asia, within a century of its introduction into Europe, amounts to the miraculous; and particularly when we see new habits of life, and novelties in their ceremonies of state, at once adopted and become familiar, to such otherwise unchangeable people as the orientals are known to be. Extraordinary also is the fact that the forms and ceremonies adopted should so precisely coincide (in most respects) with those in use among the American Indians, and should not be found in any of the intermediate countries through which we must suppose them to have passed. Who taught them the presentation of the pipe to guests, a form so strictly observed by the Red Men of America, &c.? But the "narghile," the "kaleoon," the "hookah," the "hubble-bubble," whence came they? They are indigenous.

Great stress is laid on the silence of Marco Polo, Rubruquis,—the two Mahomedans, Drake, Cavendish, and Pigafelta; also of the Arabian Nights, on the subject of smoking,—and with reason; but, after all, it is negative evidence: for we have examples of the same kind the other way. Sir Henry Blount, who was in Turkey in 1634, describes manners and customs very minutely without a single allusion to smoking, though we know that twenty years previously to that date the Turks were inveterate smokers. M. Adr. Balbi insists likewise on the prevalence of the Haïtian name "tambaku" being conclusive as to the introduction of tobacco from America. This, however, is not exactly the case: in many countries of the East it has vernacular names. In Ceylon it is called "dun-kol" or smoke-leaf; in China, "tharr"—Barrow says, "yen."

The Yakuti (and Tungusi?) call it "schaar." The Crim Tartars call it "tütün." The Koreans give it the name of the province of Japan whence they first received it. In the Tartar (Calmuc and Bashkir?) "gansa" is a tobacco-pipe. In America itself tobacco has many names, viz. "goia," "gozobba" or "cohobba," "petun," "y'ouly," "yoly," and "uppwoc." Are there any proofs of its growing wild in America? At the discovery it was every where found in a state of cultivation. The only mention I have met with is in Drake's Book of the Indians[3 - Book iv., p. 5., ed. 8vo., Boston.], where he says it grew spontaneously at Wingandacoa[4 - Virginia.], and was called by the natives "uppewoc." Does not this very notice imply something unusual? and might not this have been a deserted plantation?

The Indians have always looked to Europeans for presents of tobacco, which they economise by mixing with willow-bark, the uva-ursi, &c., and there are some tribes totally unacquainted with its use. M'Kenzie says, the Chepewyans learnt smoking from Europeans, and that the Slave and Dogrib Indians did not even know the use of tobacco.

In mentioning the silence of early visitors to the East on the subject of smoking, I might have added equally the silence of the Norwegian visitors to America on the same subject.

    A.C.M.

Exeter, July 25. 1850.

The tobacco-plant does not appear to be indigenous to any part of Asia. Sir John Chardin, who was in Persia about the year 1670, relates in his travels, that tobacco had been cultivated there from time immemorial. "Honest John Bell" (of Antermony), who travelled in China about 1720, asserts that it is reported the Chinese have had the use of tobacco for many ages. Rumphius, who resided at Amboyna towards the end of the seventeenth century, found it universal over the East Indies, even in countries where Spaniards or Portuguese had never been. The evidence furnished by these authors, although merely traditional, is the strongest which I am aware of in favour of an Asiatic origin for the use of tobacco.

Mr. Lane, on the other hand, speaks of the "introduction of tobacco into the East, in the beginning of the seventeenth century of our era," (Arabian Nights, Note 22. cap. iii.), "a fact that has been completely established by the researches of Dr. Meyer of Konigsberg, who discovered in the works of an old Hindostanee physician a passage in which tobacco is distinctly stated to have been introduced into India by the Frank nations in the year 1609." (Vide An Essay on Tobacco, by H.W. Cleland, M.D. 4to. Glasgow, 1840, to which I am indebted for the information embodied in this reply to Z.A.Z., and to which I would beg to refer him for much curious matter on the subject of tobacco.)

My own impression is, that the common use of hemp in the East, for intoxicating purposes, from a very early period, has been the cause of much of the misconception which prevails with regard to the supposed ante-European employment of "tobacco, divine, rare, super-excellent tobacco," in the climes of the East.

    J.M.B.

"JOB'S LUCK," BY COLERIDGE

These lines (see Vol. ii., p. 102.) are printed in the collected editions of the poems of Coleridge. In an edition now before me, 3 vols. 12mo., Pickering, 1836, they occur at vol. ii. p. 147. As printed in that place, there is one very pointed deviation from the copy derived by Mr. Singer from the Crypt. The last line of the first stanza runs thus:

"And the sly devil did not take his spouse."

In the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1848, there is a poem by Coleridge, entitled "The Volunteer Stripling," which I do not find in the collected edition above mentioned. It was contributed to the Bath Herald, probably in 1803; and stands there with "S.T. Coleridge" appended in full. The first stanza runs thus:

"Yes, noble old warrior! this heart has beat high,
When you told of the deeds which our countrymen wrought;
O, lend me the sabre that hung by thy thigh,
And I too will fight as my forefathers fought."

I remember to have read the following version of the epigram descriptive of the character of the world some twenty or thirty years ago; but where, I have forgotten. It seems to me to be a better text than either of those given by your correspondents:

"Oh, what a glorious world we live in,
To lend, to spend, or e'en to give in;
But to borrow, to beg, or to come at one's own,
'Tis the very worst world that ever was known."

    J. Bruce.

ECCIUS DEDOLATUS

Mr. S.W. Singer, for an agreeable introduction to whom I am indebted to "Notes and Queries," having expressed a wish (Vol. ii., p. 122.) "to see and peruse" the rare and amusing satire, entitled Eccius dedolatus, authore Joanne-francisco Cottalembergio, Poeta Laureato, I shall willingly forward to him a quarto volume which contains two copies of it, at any time that an opportunity may present itself. In the meanwhile, he may not have any objection to hear that these are copies of distinct impressions; neither of them intentionally recording place or printer.

Four separate and curious woodcuts decorate the title-page of one exemplar, which was certainly printed at Basil, apud Andream Cratandrum. The topmost woodcut, dated 1519, is here misplaced; for it should be at the bottom of the page, in which position it appears when employed to grace the title of the facetious Responsio of Simon Hess to Luther. The second copy is in Gothic letter, and has typographical ornaments very similar to those used at Leipsic in the same year. A peculiar colophon is added in the Basle edition; and after the words "Impressum in Utopia," a quondam possessor of the tract, probably its contemporary, has written with indignation, "Stulte mentiris!" The duplicate, which I suppose to be of Leipsic origin, concludes with "Impressum per Agrippun Panoplium, Regis Persarum Bibliopolam L. Simone Samaritano et D. Juda Schariottide Consulibus, in urbe Lacernarum, apud confluentes Rhenum et Istrum."

Professor Ranke, referred to by Mr. Singer, was mistaken in assigning "March, 1520," as the date of Eccius dedolatus. The terms "Acta decimo Kalendas Marcii" are, I believe, descriptive of Tuesday, the 20th of February, in that year.

Perhaps Mr. Singer may be able to communicate some tidings respecting the Apostolic Prothonotary Simon Hess, of whom I have casually spoken. Natalis Alexander (Hist. Eccles., viii. 105. Paris, 1699) attributes the humorous production which bears his name ("Lege et ridebis," declares the original title-page) to Luther himself, amongst whose works it may be seen (tom. ii, fol. 126-185. Witeb. 1551); and it is a disappointment to read in Seckendorf, "Hessus Simon. Quis hic fuerit, compertum mihi non est." (Scholia sive Supplem ad Ind. i. Histor., sig. 1. 3. Francof. 1692.)

    R.G.

Replies to Minor Queries

Hiring of Servants (Vol. ii., p. 89.).—It was provided by several old statutes, the first of which was passed in 1349, that all able-bodied persons who had no evident means of subsistence should put themselves as labourers to any that would hire them. In the following year were passed several other acts relating to labourers, by one of which, 25 Edward III. stat. i. c. i., entitled, "The Year and Day's Wages of Servants and Labourers in Husbandry," it was enacted that ploughmen and all other labourers should be hired to serve for the full year, or other usual terms, and not by the day; and further,

"That such labourers do carry openly in their hands, in market towns, their instruments of labour, and be there hired in a public place, and not privately."

For carrying into effect these provisions, it would be necessary to have certain days, and a fixed place set apart for the hiring of servants. In the former particular, no days would be so convenient as feast days: they were well known, and were days commonly computed from; they were, besides, holidays, and days for which labourers were forbidden to receive wages (see 34 Edw. III. c. 10. and 4 Henry IV. c. 14.); so that, although absent from labour, they would lose no part of the scanty pittances allowed them by act of parliament or settled by justices. As to the latter requirement, no place was so public, or would so naturally suggest itself, or be so appropriate, as the market-place.

Thus arose in our own land the custom respecting which W.J. makes inquiry, and also our statute fairs, or statutes; thus called on account of their reference to the various "Statutes of Labourers." I was not aware that any usage to hire on all festivals (for to such, I take it, your correspondent refers) still existed in England. As to France, I am unable to speak; but it is not improbable that a similar custom in that country may be due to causes nearly similar.

    Arun.

George Herbert.—J.R. FOX (Vol. ii., p. 103.) will find in Major's excellent edition of Walton's Lives the information he requires. At p. 346. it is stated that Mrs. Herbert, the widow of George Herbert, was afterwards the wife of Sir Robert Cook, of Highnam, in the county of Gloucester, Knt., eight years, and lived his widow about fifteen; all which time she took a pleasure in mentioning and commending the excellences of Mr. George Herbert. She died in the year 1653, and lies buried at Highnam; Mr. Herbert in his own church, under the altar, and covered with a gravestone without any inscription.

And amongst the notes appended by Major to these Lives, is the following additional notice of Herbert's burial-place. The parish register of Bemerton states that

"Mr. George Herbert, Esq., parson of Inggleston and Bemerton, was buried the 3rd day of March, 1632."

"Thus he lived and thus he died," says Walton, "like a saint, unspotted of the world, full of almsdeeds, full of humility, and all the examples of a virtuous life, which I cannot conclude better than with this borrowed observation:

"'—All must to their cold graves;
But the religious actions of the just
Smell sweet in death, and blossom in the dust.'"

Altered from a dirge written by Shirley, attached to his Contention of Ajax and Ulysses for the Armour of Achilles, Lond. 1659, 8vo. See Percy's Reliques of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 284.

    J.M.G.

Worcester, July 22.

Lord Delamere (Vol. ii., p. 104.).—In Mr. Thomas Lyte's Ancient Ballads and Songs, 12mo. 1827, is a ballad, taken down from tradition, entitled Lord Delamere. It begins as follows, and though different from the opening lines given by Mr. Peacock, I am inclined to think that it is another version of the same ballad:

In the parliament house,
A great rout has been there,
Betwixt our good king
And the Lord Delamere;
Says Lord Delamere
To his Majesty full soon,
Will it please you, my liege,
To grant me a boon?

After nine more stanzas, the editor remarks,