was in such general use it yet had plenty of enemies.
It was extravagantly abused and extravagantly praised. Robert Burton,
of "Anatomy of Melancholy" fame, like many other writers of his time,
was prepared to admit the medicinal value of the herb, though he
detested the general habit of smoking. Tobacco was supposed in those
days to be "good for" a surprising variety of ailments and diseases;
but to explore that little section of popular medicine would be
foreign to my purpose. Burton believed in tobacco as medicine; but
with regard to habitual smoking he was a worthy follower of King
James, the strength of whose language he sought to emulate and exceed
when he denounced the common taking of tobacco "by most men, which
take it as tinkers do ale"--as "a plague, a mischief, a violent purger
of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the
ruin and overthrow of body and soul." No anti-tobacconist could wish
for a more whole-hearted denunciation than that.

Thomas Dekker, to whose pictures of London social life at the opening
of the seventeenth century we are so much indebted for information
both with regard to smoking and in respect of many other matters of
interest, was himself an enemy of tobacco. He politely refers to "that
great Tobacconist, the Prince of Smoake and Darkness, Don Pluto"; and
in another place addresses tobacco as "thou beggarly Monarche of
Indians, and setter up of rotten-lungd chimney-sweepers," and proceeds
in a like strain of abuse.

One of the most curious of the early publications on tobacco, in which
an attempt is made to hold the balance fairly between the legitimate
use and the "licentious" abuse of the herb, is Tobias Venner's tract
with the long-winded title: "A Brief and Accurate Treatise concerning
The taking of the Fume of Tobacco, Which very many, in these dayes doe
too licenciously use. In which the immoderate, irregular, and
unseasonable use thereof is reprehended, and the true nature and best
manner of using it, perspicuously demonstrated." Venner described
himself as a doctor of physic in Bath, and his tract was published in
London in 1637. Venner says that tobacco is of "ineffable force" for
the rapid healing of wounds, cuts, sores and so on, by external
application, but thinks little of its use for any other purpose. Like
others of his school, he attacks the "licentious Tobacconists
[smokers] who spend and consume, not only their time, but also their
health, wea