WHEN Life was all a summer day,
And I was under twenty,

Three loves were scattered in my way-
And three at once are plenty.

Three hearts, if offered with a grace,
One thinks not of refusing.

The task in this especial case
Was only that of choosing.

I knew not which to make my pet-
My pipe, cigar, or cigarette.

To cheer my night or glad my day
My pipe was ever willing;

The meerschaum or the lowly clay
Alike repaid the filling.

Grown men delight in blowing clouds,
As boys in blowing bubbles,
Our cares to puff away in crowds,
And banish all our troubles.

My pipe I nearly made my pet,
Above cigar or cigarette.

A tiny paper, tightly rolled About some Latakia,

Contains within its magic fold
A mighty panacea.

Some thought of sorrow or of strife
At ev'ry whiff will vanish;
And all the scenery of life
Turn picturesquely Spanish.

But still I could not quite forget

Cigar and pipe for cigarette.

To yield an after-dinner puff
O'er demi-tasse and brandy,
No cigarettes are strong enough
No pipes are ever handy.
However fine may be the feed,
It only moves my laughter
Unless a dry delicious weed
Appears a little after.

A prime cigar I firmly set
Above a pipe or cigarette.

But, after all, I try in vain
To fetter my opinion;
Since each upon my giddy brain
Has boasted a dominion.
Comparisons I'll not provoke,

Lest all should be offended.

Let this discussion end in smoke,
As many more have ended.
And each I'll make a special pet ;
My pipe, cigar, and cigarette.

HENRY S. LEIGH.

The London Magazine. November, 1875.

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ODE TO MY PIPE.

My pipe to me, thro' gloom and glee,
Has been my faithful friend ;

I sit and smoke- not sit and soak,
For that I can't commend.

Bird's eye, returns, or shag that burns
Most freely and most bright;
This Indian weed, it is, indeed,
My solace and delight.

Some people say it steals away

The brain, till all is bare,

But they are foes, or chiefly those
Who've got no brains to spare.

Great Doctor Parr, bright learning's star,

A scholar rare and ripe,

Would sit and puff, through smooth and rough,
Enraptured with his pipe.

My pipe I'll fill, and smoke I will,
Though all the world condemn;
And if I die burnt black and dry,
Pray, what is that to them?

The Echo. February 16, 1889.

WHO SCORNS THE PIPE.

WHO scorns the pipe? Show me the man,

I do not mention "glasses,"

He's writhing under social ban
The jink his soul compasses-

Old friend Tobacco !

Ye carping souls, who, envious, doom The weed to dire perdition,

Just take a whiff-dispel the gloom That clouds your mental vision— Of rare Tobacco !

.:0:

MOTTO FOR A TOBACCO JAR.

COME! don't refuse sweet Nicotina's aid,

But woo the goddess through a yard of clay;
And soon you'll own she is the fairest maid

To stifle pain and drive old Care away.

Nor deem it waste, what though to ash she burns,
If for your outlay you get good Returns!

Some time since, in Cope's Tobacco Plant, there was a competition for the best inscription for a Tobacco Jar. The first and second prizes were awarded to the following, and many others were printed :

First.

INSCRIPTION FOR A TOBACCO JAR.

THREE hundred year ago or soe,

Ane worthye knight and gentleman
Did bring mee here, to charm and cheer
Ye physical and mental man.
God rest his soul, who filled ye bowl,
And may our blessings find him;
That hee not miss some share of bliss,
Who left soe much behind him!

YE SMOKE JACK (BERNARD BARKER).

Second.

KEEP me at hand, and as my fumes arise You'll find a jar the gates of Paradise.

They tell me that Bank stock
Is sunk much under par;
It's all the same to me,
So I have my cigar.

Honours have come to men
My juniors at the Bar;
No matter I can wait,
So I have my cigar.

Ambition frets me not,

A cab or glory's car
Are just the same to me,
So I have my cigar.

I worship no vain gods,

But serve the household Lar,

I'm sure to be at home,
So I have my cigar.

I do not seek for fame,
A General with a scar;
A private let me be,
So I have my cigar.

To have my choice among

The toys of life's bazaar,

The deuce may take them all,
So I have my cigar.

Some minds are often tost
By tempests like a tar;
I always seem in port
So I have my cigar.

The ardent flame of love

My bosom cannot char,
I smoke, but do not burn,
So I have my cigar.

They tell me Nancy Low
Has married Mr. Parr;
The Jilt! but I can live,
So I have my cigar.

It was gone! and I could not another one light!
But the lesson in love's stronger far;

Ere the embers of one flame have ceased to be bright,
Light another-just like a cigar!

From The Chameleon, published anonymously by Longmans, Rees & Co., London, 1833. Ascribed to T. Atkinson.

THE SMOKERS.

SMOKE, do you? Well, then, sir, you know
How fast and firm these habits grow;
You've often doubtless sworn to quit,
And then forgot it till you'd lit
A fresh cigar, and caught the smell
Of that which pleases you so well.

You've doubtless looked into your purse
And counted cost with many a curse,
And read of dread diseases caught
By smoking oftener than you ought;
And vowed at least that you'd curtail
The cost and danger, but to fail.

You buy two where 'twas six before-
But go more often to the store;
You storm and reason with yourself,
And put your box back on the shelf,
But, in whatever place you are,

Your thoughts are with your shelved cigar.

How weak this proves strong men to be!
Free, yet in hopeless slavery!
The thought is madness to the mind;
We'll burst these galling chains that bind !
But, ere, my friend, we go too far,
I'll thank you for a fresh cigar.

HIS FIRST CIGAR.

A SMALL boy puffed at a big cigar
His eyes bulged out and his cheeks sank in :
He gulped rank fumes with his lips ajar,

While muscles shook in his youthful chin.
His gills were green, but he smole a smile;
He sat high up on the farmyard stile,
And cocked his hat o'er his glassy eye,
Then wunk a wink at a cow near by.

The earth swam round, but the stile stood still,
The trees rose up and the kid crawled down
He groaned aloud for he felt so ill,

And knew that cigar had "done him brown." His head was light, and his feet like lead, His cheeks grew white as a linen spread, While he weakly gasped, as he gazed afar, "If I live, this here's my last cigar."

MY LAST CIGAR.

THE mighty Thebes, and Babylon the great,
Imperial Rome, in turn, have bowed to fate;
So this great world, and each particular star,
Must all burn out, like you, my last cigar:
A puff-a transient fire, that ends in smoke,

And all that's given to man-that bitter joke-
Youth, Hope, and Love, three whiffs of passing zest
Then come the ashes, and the long, long rest.

From Nicotiana, by Henry James Meller. London. Effingham Wilson. 1832.

COLUMBUS DISPATCH.

TO MY CIGAR.

(Translated from the German of Friedrich Marc.)

THE warmth of thy glow,
Well lighted cigar
Makes happy thoughts flow,
And drives sorrow afar.

The stronger the wind blows
The brighter thou burnest,
The dreariest of life's woes
Less gloomy thou turnest.

As I feel on my lip
Thy unselfish kiss,

Like thy flame colour'd tip,
All is rosy-hued bliss.

No longer does sorrow,

Lay weight on my heart, And all fears of the morrow In joy dreams depart. Sweet cheerer of sadness Life's own happy star! I greet thee with gladness My precious cigar!

As the years vanish, darling.
Time, with the sponge of Fate,
Wipes the events we cherish
Cleanly from Memory's slate;
E'en the first pair of * *

That I put on, I vow,

I have forgot their colour,

Their cut. and their pattern now; When did the dawning whisker Sprout on my boyish face? When did my soaring treble Change to a manly bass?

I have forgotten, darling,

I have forgotten-but, ah!

One memory ever will haunt me

The taste of my First Cigar !

Not in fair Cuba, darling,
Under a sun of gold;

Or down in old Virginny

Were those brown leaves enrolled, But from the English cabbage Sprang the enchanting weed In a Whitechapel cellar,

Moulded and made, indeed;

I cannot tell you, darling,

How my heart thrill d with glee, As down on the shiny counter Planked I my last two d., And the fair girl who served me, Lounging behind the bar, Handed across the beer-pulls A light for my First Cigar.

Moments of dire upheaval,

Darling, your boy has known,
When salmon for supper unsettled
Sadly his system's tone,
When at two a.m. on the doorstep

He has stood, with a vacant smile,
Two bob and a toothpick in pocket,
And wearing a stranger's tile,-
And oft on the billowy ocean,
His anguish has naught assuaged,

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THE CIGARETTE.

I SING the song of the cigarette,
The nineteenth century dudelet's pet;
With its dainty white overcoat,
Prithee, now, make a note,
How your affections entangled get.
The Machiavelian power I sing,

Of the stealthy, insidious, treacherous thing.

What odours unpleasant our nostrils fret!
That subtle aroma we ne'er forget.

But wherefore complain of it?
Spite of the pain of it,

We, too, indulge in our cigarette.
The skeletonizing power I sing,

Of the mind-paralyzing, perfidious thing.

Shades of the past, that linger yet!
Is there no land where laws beset
Those who lay sense aside,
Puffing slow suicide,

Into themselves from a cigarette?
Thither I'd fly, and for ever sing

The praise of the land that is free from the thing.

From the various gamins the slums beget
To the gilded youth with the coronet,
All of them play with it,
Seemingly gay with it,

Taking slow death through a cigarette.
The invasive, intrusive, odoriferous thing
Its power autocratic I sadly sing.

What sinner without and beyond the pale
Of civilization, began to inhale,
Sealing his own sad fate,

Telling us, oh, too late!

Gibbering lunacy ends the tale.

Husky my voice, I must cease to sing,

I'm puffing, myself, at the poisonous thing. The Judge.

SNUFF: AN INSPIRATION.

THE pungent, nose-refreshing weed,
Which, whether pulverised it gain
A speedy passage to the brain,
Or, whether touched with fire, it rise
In circling eddies to the skies,
Does thought more quicken and refine
Than all the breath of all the Nine.
WILLIAM COWPER.

SGANARELLE, tenant une tabatière :—

"Quoi que puissent dire Aristote et toute la philosophie, il n'est rien d'égal au tabac; c'est la passion des honnêtes gens, et qui vit sans tabac n'est pas digne de vivre. Non seulement il réjouit et purge les cerveaux humains, mais encore il instruit les âmes à la vertu, et l'on apprend avec lui à devenir honnête homme. Ne voyez-vous pas bien, dès qu'on en prend, de quelle manière obligeante on en use avec tout le monde, et comme on est ravi d'en donner à droite et à gauche, par-tout où l'on se trouve? On n'attend pas même que l'on en demande, et l'on court audevant du souhait des gens: tant il est vrai que le tabac inspire des sentiments d'honneur et de vertu à tous ceux qui en prennent.'

MOLIERE. Don Juan. (1665.)

SIX REASONS FOR TAKING Snuff.
WHEN strong perfumes and noisome scents,
The suffering nose invade
Snuff, best of Indian weeds, presents
Its salutary aid.

When vapours swim before the eyes,
And cloud the dizzy brain,

Snuff, to dispel the mist, applies
Its quick enlivening grain.

When pensively we sit or walk,
Each social friend away,

Snuff best supplies the want of talk,
And cheers the lonely day.

The hand, like alabaster fair,

The diamond's sparkling pride,

Can ne'er so gracefully appear,

If snuff should be denied.

E'en Commerce, name of sweetest sound
To every British ear,

Must suffering droop, should snuff be found

Unworthy of our care.

For ev'ry pinch of snuff we take
Helps trade in some degree;
As smallest drops of water make

The vast unbounded sea.

Read's Weekly Journal. February 21, 1761.

J'AI DU BON TABAC.

J'AI du bon tabac dans ma tabatière,
J'ai du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas.
J'en ai du fin et du rapé,

Ce n'est pour ton fichu nez.
J'ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière,
J'ai du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas.

Ce refrain connu que chantait mon père,
A ce seul couplet il était borné.

Moi, je me suis determiné
A le grossir comme mon nez.
J'ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière,
J'ai du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas.
Un noble heritier de gentilhommière,
Recueille tout seul un fief blasonné,
Il dit a son frère puiné

Sois abbé, je suis ton ainé.
J'ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière,
J'ai du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas.
Un vieil usurier, expert en affaire,
Auquel par besoin on est amené,

A l'emprunteur infortuné,
Dit, après l'avoir ruiné:
J'ai du bon tabac, dans ma tabatière,
J'ai du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas.
Juges, avocats, entr'ouvrant leurs serres,
Au pauvre plaideur par eux rançonné,
Après avoir pateliné,

Disent, le procés terminé :
J'ai du bon tabac, dans ma tabatière,
J'ai du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas.
D'un gros financier, la coquette flaire
Le beau bijou d'or de diamants orné.

Ce grigou, d'un air renfrogné,
Lui dit: Malgré ton joli nez-
J'ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière,
J'ai du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas.

Tel qui veut nier l'esprit de Voltaire,
Est pour le sentir trop enchifrené.
Cet esprit est trop raffiné,
Et lui passe devant le nez.
Voltaire a l'esprit dans sa tabatière,
Et du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas.

Voilà huit couplets, cela ne fait guère,
Pour un tel sujet bien assaisonné;

Mais j'ai peur qu'un priseur mal né,
Me chante, en me riant au nez:
J'ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière
J'ai du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas.
GABRIEL CHARLES DE LATTEIGNANT (1697-1779.)

TO MY NOSE.

KNOWS he that never took a pinch,
Nosey, the pleasure thence which flows?
Knows he the titillating joys
Which my nose knows?

O nose! I am as proud of thee
As any mountain of its snows;
I gaze on thee, and feel that pride
A Roman knows?
ALFRED CROWQUILL.

The Comic Offering. 1834.