will,
Youth, Beauty, Love or Glory, still
My theme shall be Tobacco!
Hail, weed, eclipsing every flow'r,
Of thee I fain would make my bow'r
When fortune frowns, or tempests low'r,
Mild comforter of woe!

"They say in truth an angel's foot
First brought to life thy precious root,
The source of every pleasure!
Descending from the skies he press'd
With hallow'd touch Earth's yielding breast,
Forth sprang the plant, and then was bless'd,
As man's chief treasure!

"Throughout the world who knows thee not?
Of palace and of lowly cot
The universal guest;
The friend of Gentile, Turk and Jew,
To all a stay--to none untrue,
The balm that can our ills subdue,
And soothe us into rest.

"With thee the poor man can abide
Oppression, want, the scorn of pride,
The curse of penury,
Companion of his lonely state,
He is no longer desolate,
And still can brave an adverse fate,
With honest worth and thee!

"All honor to the patriot bold,
Who brought instead of promised gold,
Thy leaf to Britain's shore;
It cost him life; but thou shall raise
A cloud of fragrance to his praise,
And bards shall hail in deathless lays
The valiant knight of yore.

"Ay, Raleigh! thou wilt live till Time
Shall ring his last oblivious chime,
The fruitful theme of story;
And man in ages hence shall tell,
How greatness, virtue, wisdom fell,
When England sounded out thy knell,
And dimmed her ancient glory.

"And thou, O Plant! shall keep his name
Unwither'd in the scroll of fame,
And teach us to remember;
He gave with thee content and peace,
Bestow'd on life a longer lease,
And bidding ev'ry trouble cease,
Made Summer of December!"

The smoker of cigarettes is passionately attached to his "little roll"
and regards this mode of obtaining the flavor of tobacco the best. The
finest are made in Havana and, vast quantities are used by the Cubans
and Spaniards. A writer in "The Tobacco Plant" gives this pleasing
effusion in regard to them:--

"Your cigarette is a sort of hybrid--half-pipe and
half-cigar; neither the one nor the other; neither the
delight of the epicure nor the solace of the true
tobac