the one side Nature being an
enemy to vacuity and emptiness and on the other, there being
so many empty brains in the world as there are, how shall
Nature's course be continued? How shall those empty brains
be filled but with air, Nature's immediate instrument to
that purpose? If with air, what so proper as your fume; what
fume so healthful as your perfume, what perfume so sovereign
as tobacco. Besides the excellent edge it gives a man's wit,
as they but judge that have been present at a feast of
tobacco, where commonly all good wits are consoled; what
variety of discourse it begets, what sparks of wit it
yields?"[33]

[Footnote 33: A writer in the "New England Magazine"
says in a different strain: "This is the enemy that men
put in their mouths, to steal away their health. This
has filled the camp, the court, the grove. It is found
in the pulpit, the senate, the bar and the boudoir."]

The name of Sir Walter is intimately connected with the history of
tobacco, and is associated with many of the brilliant exploits and
explorations during the reign of the illustrious Elizabeth.[34] His
name has come down to us as being that of the first smoker of tobacco
in England,[35] and many amusing anecdotes are told of him and the new
custom which he introduced and sanctioned. Dixon has given us the
following vivid picture of the great Elizabethan navigator:

[Footnote 34: Thorpe, in his "History and Mystery of
Tobacco," relates the following anecdote: "Tradition
says, that in the time of Queen Elizabeth Sir Walter
Raleigh used to sit at his door with Sir Hugh Middleton
and smoke."]

[Footnote 35: Dr. Thomas Short, in his work "Discourses
on Tea, Tobacco, Punch, &c," (London 1750,) says of the
original smoker: "Sir Walter was the first that brought
the Custom of smoking it into Britain, upon his return
from America; for he saw the natives of Florida, Brazil
and other places of the Indies, smoak it thus, they hung
about their Necks little Pipes or Horns made of the
Leaves of the Date Tree, or of Reeds or Rushes; and at
the ends of them they put several dry Tobacco Leaves
twisted and broken, and set