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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 1:

Another Elizabethan who is often said to have smoked the first pipe in England is Ralph Lane, the first Governor of Virginia, who came home with Drake in 1586. Lane is said to have given Sir Walter Raleigh an Indian pipe and to have shown him how to use it. There is no original authority, however, for the statement that Lane first smoked tobacco in England, and, moreover, he was not the first English visitor to Virginia to return to this country. One Captain Philip Amadas accompanied Captain Barlow, who commanded on the occasion of Raleigh's first voyage of discovery, when the country was formally taken possession of and named Virginia in honour of Queen Elizabeth. This was early in 1584. The two captains reached England in September 1584, bringing with them the natives of whom King James I, in his "Counter-blaste to Tobacco," speaks as "some two or three Savage men," who "were brought in, together with this Savage custome," i.e. of smoking. It is extremely improbable that Captains Amadas and Barlow, when reporting to Raleigh on their expedition, did not also make him acquainted with the Indian practice of smoking. This would be two years before the return of Ralph Lane.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 2:

Ben Jonson has given us an amusing picture of the behaviour of gallants on the Elizabethan stage, in his "Cynthia's Revels." In this scene a child thus mimics the obtrusive beau: "Now, sir, suppose I am one of your genteel auditors, that am come in (having paid my money at the door, with much ado), and here I take my place, and sit downe. I have my three sorts of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus I begin. 'By this light, I wonder that any man is so mad, to come to see these rascally tits play here—they do act like so many wrens—not the fifth part of a good face amongst them all—and then their musick is abominable—able to stretch a man's ears worse than ten—pillories, and their ditties—most lamentable things, like the pitiful fellows that make them—poets. By this vapour—an't were not for tobacco—I think—the very smell of them would poison me, I should not dare to come in at their gates. A man were better visit fifteen jails—or a dozen or two hospitals—than once adventure to come near them.'" And the young rascal, who at each pause marked by a dash had puffed his pipe, no doubt blowing an extra large "cloud" when he swore "by this vapour," turns to his companions and says: "How is't? Well?" and they pronounce his mimicry "Excellent!"

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