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INVOCATION TO TOBACCO.

NICOTIANA.

THE HISTORY OF THE IMPORTATION OF THE TOBACCO PLANT INTO EUROPE, AND THE ORIGIN OF SMOKING IN ENGLAND.

The earth, perhaps, has never offered to the use of man a herb, whose history and adoption offer so varied a subject for thought and the mind’s speculation, as tobacco. In whatever light we view it, there is something to interest the botanist, the physician, the philosopher, and even the historian, while, from the singularity of its discovery in a corner of the world where it had remained so long concealed, it would almost seem intended by Providence, to answer some especial purpose in the creation. Few things ever created a greater sensation than it did, on its first introduction into Europe. It was adopted with an avidity, so far from decreasing with time, that the experience of nearly three centuries has but rendered it universal. That the habits of snuffing, and smoking, are not beneficial to the human constitution, has been asserted as a fact by many savans, and more powerfully defended by others. Probably, after all, the most singular thing in favour of these habits is, that the practice of them, which should perfect our knowledge, advocates so strongly their use as agreeable stimulants, promoting cheerfulness, and mild and gentle in their operation when not adopted to too great an extent. This will be found the belief among the most enlightened, as well as the millions who echo its praises, from every clime and corner of the habitable globe.

The precise introduction of the tobacco plant into Europe, from the varied and contradictory accounts that exist concerning it, is involved in some obscurity. That it was unknown to the Europeans, till the discovery of South America by that indefatigable voyager Columbus, is certain; although Don Ulloa,[1] a Spaniard, and a writer of celebrity in the last century, would fain have shown that the plant was indigenous to several parts of Asia; as China, Persia, Turkey, and Arabia. He asserts, with some ingenuity we grant, that the plant was known and used in smoking in those countries, long previous to the discovery of the New World. But, as the Old Testament and the Koran, books that treated of the most trifling Eastern customs, make not the slightest mention of it, and more especially as no travellers have ever recorded its existence previous to the discovery of America, we cannot but dismiss the supposition, for want of data, as idle in the extreme.

Although we cannot, with the powers of observation Columbus is said to have possessed, but imagine the plant must have been known to him, particularly as it was so popular among the natives, yet no mention is made of that fact or of its introduction into Spain by him. On the contrary, one account furnished us, attributes it to Hernandez de Toledo, and another with a greater show of probability to Fernando Cortes.

This latter adventurer, after the death of his great and ill-fated predecessor, succeeded to the command of a flotilla to prosecute those researches in the New World, as it was then called, that promised such an influx of wealth to the nation. It was in the year 1519 that Cortes, flushed with the sanguine expectations of an ambitious people, set out to take possession, in the name of the Spanish sovereignty, of a country whose treasures were deemed boundless.

Coasting along for several days, he came to a part of the shore of a very rich and luxuriant description, which induced him to come to anchor, and land; the natives asserting that it abounded in gold and silver mines. This place was a province of Yucatan in the Mexican Gulf, called Tobaco, the place from whence tobacco is supposed to have derived its present name. There it was that the plant was discovered, in a very thriving and flourishing state. Among the natives who held it in the greatest possible esteem and reverence, from the almost magical virtues they attached to it, it was called petun, and by those in the adjoining islands yoli. So singular a production of the country could not but draw the attention of the Spanish commander to it. The consequence was, that a specimen of it was shipped home with other curiosities of the country, with a long detail of its supposed astonishing virtues, in pharmacy. In the latter end of the year the plants arrived at their destination, and this may fairly be deemed to have been their first entry into the civilized portion of the world.

A dreadful disease, first brought from America by the last return of Columbus, raged about this period with a fearful and unchecked virulency in Spain, committing dreadful devastations on the human frame, and finally ending in the most horrible death imagination could picture. This circumstance served to procure it a most sanguine welcome; for the sailors composing the fleet, having learnt it from the natives, had disseminated the belief, that it was the only known antidote against its ravages,—that it in fact answered the purposes of mercury in the present day, a belief welcomed with enthusiasm, and ending in despair.

No sooner, however, was its inefficacy perceived, than it sunk in the estimation of its worshippers, as low as it previously had risen. Indeed, into such obscurity did it fall after the hopes it had vainly excited, that nearly forty years elapsed, ere it obtained any notice worth commemorating. At about the end of that period, however, we