purposes.
The smoking of tobacco in England seems from the first to have been
much more a matter of pleasure than of hygiene.

Who first smoked a pipe of tobacco in England? The honour is divided
among several claimants. It has often been stated that Captain William
Middleton or Myddelton (son of Richard Middleton, Governor of Denbigh
Castle), a Captain Price and a Captain Koet were the first who smoked
publicly in London, and that folk flocked from all parts to see them;
and it is usually added that pipes were not then invented, so they
smoked the twisted leaf, or cigars. This account first appeared in one
of the volumes of Pennant's "Tour in Wales." But the late Professor
Arber long ago pointed out that the remark as to the mode of smoking
by cigars and not by pipes was simply Pennant's speculation. The
authority for the rest of the story is a paper in the Sebright MSS.,
which, in an account of William Middleton, has the remark: "It is
sayed, that he, with Captain Thomas Price of Plasyollin and one
Captain Koet, were the first who smoked, or (as they called it) drank
tobacco publickly in London; and that the Londoners flocked from all
parts to see them." No date is named, and no further particulars are
available.

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.

But certainly pipes were smoke