Tobacco History:
The Social History of Smoking
by George Latimer Apperson
First published in 1914
"The Social History of Smoking" by George Latimer Apperson, can be purchased at Amazon.com in two different versions. Depending on the quality of the edition, prices range between $35 and $104.
From Chapter 3: The accomplished Shift promises a would-be pupil in the art of taking tobacco that if he pleases to be a practitioner, he shall learn in a fortnight to "take it plausibly in any ordinary, theatre, or the Tiltyard, if need be, in the most popular assembly that is." The Tiltyard adjoined Whitehall Palace and was the frequent scene of sports in which Queen Elizabeth took the greatest delight. Here took place, not only tilting properly so called, but rope-walking performances, bear- and bull-baiting, dancing and other diversions which her Majesty held in high favour. Consequently the Tiltyard was constantly the scene of courtly gatherings; and if smoking were permitted on such occasions—as Shift's boasting promises would appear to indicate—then it may be reasonably inferred that Queen Elizabeth did not entertain the objections to the new practice that her successor, King James, set forth with such vehemence in his famous "Counterblaste to Tobacco." There is, however, no positive evidence one way or the other, to show what the attitude of the Virgin Queen towards tobacco really was. A tradition as to her smoking herself on one occasion is referred to in a subsequent chapter—that on " smoking by Women."
From Chapter 8: More than one writer of recent days has absurdly misrepresented Johnson as a smoker. The author of a book on tobacco published a few years ago wrote—"Dr. Johnson smoked like a furnace"—a grotesquely untrue statement—and "all his friends, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, were his companions in tobacco-worship." Reynolds, we know— When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Corregios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff. Johnson and all his company took snuff, as every one in the fashionable world, and a great many others outside that charmed circle, did; but Johnson did not smoke, and I doubt whether any of the others did.
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