o much respect, to admit of offering at that
time from Hand to Hand the Snuff-Box. But Flavilla is so far taken
with her Behaviour in this kind, that she pulls out her Box (which is
indeed full of good Brazile) in the middle of the Sermon; and to shew
she has the Audacity of a well-bred Woman, she offers it the Men as
well as the Women who sit near her: But since by this Time all the
World knows she has a fine Hand, I am in hopes she may give her self
no further Trouble in this matter. On Sunday was sennight, when they
came about for the Offering, she gave her Charity with a very good
Air, but at the same Time asked the Churchwarden if he would take a
Pinch. Pray, Sir, think of these things in time, and you will oblige,

SIR,

Your most humble servant.

T.

[Footnote 1: Charles Lillie, the perfumer, from whose shop at the corner
of Beaufort Buildings the original Spectators were distributed, left
behind him a book of receipts and observations, The British Perfumer,
Snuff Manufacturer, and Colourmans Guide, of which the MS. was sold
with his business, but which remained unpublished until 1822. He opens
his Part III. on Snuffs with an account of the Origin of Snuff-taking
in England, the practice being one that had become fashionable in his
day, and only about eight years before the appearance of the Spectator.
It dates from Sir George Rooke's expedition against Cadiz in 1702.
Before that time snuff-taking in England was confined to a few luxurious
foreigners and English who had travelled abroad. They took their snuff
with pipes of the size of quills out of small spring boxes. The pipes
let out a very small quantity upon the back of the hand, and this was
snuffed up the nostrils with the intention of producing a sneeze which,
says Lillie, I need not say forms now no part of the design or rather
fashion of snuff-taking; least of all in the ladies who took part in
this method of snuffing defiance at the public enemy. When the fleet,
after the failure of its enterprize against Cadiz, proceeded to cut off
the French ships in Vigobay, on the way it plundered Port St. Mary and
adjacent places, where, among other merchandize, seizure was made of
several thousand barrels and casks, each containing four tin canisters
of snuffs of the best growth and finest Spanish manufacture. At Vigo,
among the merchandize taken from the shipping there destroyed, were
prodigious quantities of gross snuff, from the