Snuff Taking. SNUFF A TELL-TALE-DUCHESSE DE BERRI-NOSE HUNGER CATULLUS-COWLEY-AN-UPSET-ROBBERY-MAD- KERCHIEF-PATTERNS-A SLIP OF THE TONGUE. SNUFF should not be taken by those who have aught to conceal; therefore, to its lovers it breathes a moral lesson. 66 My Lord Dooke," in "High Life below Stairs," is betrayed by his Rappeé; the Duchesse de Berri's hiding place was revealed by a few grains which the gentleman who helped her down the trap had left upon the floor; yet snuff is not so hazardous as smoking. The Romeo who courts between his whiffs will assuredly leave a breathing evidence on his lady's attire, by which opposing parties will smell out his suit; whereas, had he been content with snuff, the secret might have been kept in the box. I have seen fantastics charge a rose with snuff, and take it from the leaves. Now this is unfair on two good things; a base subterfuge for blending perfume with tobacco; and a dirty plan, too; as, unless the pinch be conducted by thumb and finger to the nostrils, it must be scattered round the nose and mouth. The added pleasure gained is doubtful and illegitimate; to rose the snuff, or snuff the rose, "is wasteful and ridiculous excess." Those who have never felt nose hunger may question its agony; it resembles that of exile; it is "just like love," or the recent loss of one's right hand, or being locked out or in; or sleepiness, with the inability to rest; or the ugly dreams of night-mare; or an expectant lady's longing for a breast of boiled Phoenix. The blind, the deaf and dumb, may sympathise with the nose hungry; or those who have forgotten some name, which every instant seems on the tip of the tongue, and yet is not. All is despondency, bewilderment, irritation; nor will, nor pride, nor reason, can have any power. The celebrated Gahagan's Vizier might say, "mildly," "Yock Muzzy, my nose is off!" Had it been on, and starving, mildness were out of nature; he must have stolen from his poorest friend, or begged of his deadliest foe, in order to relieve that fierce yet stupifying desire, which makes a rich man feel all one want, a tall man, of "delicatest" profile, nothing but one achingly voracious nose! An aspirant for patronage, on paying his first visit to a great man, whom he hoped to conciliate, discovered that, in his haste, he had left his box behind him; to return for it were ruinous to punctuality. If a tobacconist's shop lay in his route, he could hardly spare a moment, had not the means of purchasing a box, and as for carrying in paper what he dared not enjoy, that were but mocking his own misery; he felt sure that his address, his confidence would fail him, that he should totter on a yawn at every breath; he passed a squalid, featureless object, and envied her; why had he "been to the promontory?" A nose, though Roman, must still be fed, And not e'en snubs can live on flowers. His was now but a bridge of sighs." 66 Arriving, he was shewn into an apartment, and told that " My Lord would be with him in a minute or two." He might have spared himself, then, the hurry which had doomed him to "fast in fire." Thus pondered he, when, on the mantel-piece, be beheld a snuff-box! It might be empty; hope and fear could not endure suspense: he raised the lid it was full! Looking round, to guard against spies, he took a pinch. His soul, late transported to the Virginian plantations, came back to him, laden with perspicuous eloquence. He met his Lordship with a grace; got the thing he went for; and when the polite Peer tendered his box, saying :— "If ever you do this silly thing, try my mixture." With what cool ease did the applicant reply,— "I certainly-now and then-" "But I see you carry no box; accept one of mine; and let me fill it for you." Oh, what a heavenly walk home! Cleopatra talks of "a lover's pinch." Imagination and sentiment may make anything poetical. A youth of genius, who took snuff medicinally, was Platonically enamoured of the beauteous, mental, and excellent wife to a very jealous moralist. This lady liked to be liked by people of talent; she could not look repulsively at those who meant no harm. Her adorer used to see her from a distance, in huge and crowded rooms. Their look-dialogues were mutually intelligible. One night the Petrarch had taken with him to such a scene a most excruciating headache; retreat he could not; while she seemed more archly appreciating than ever. An occasional reinforcement from his box would enable him to sit it out cheerily. But while those eyes were on him, he dared not betray the humiliating fact, that he had inclinations less etherial than that he cherished for his idol. Every time he hoped to steal a pinch-flash! the twin sapphires "entered his soul" again; and he felt as if in danger of being caught picking another man's pocket, instead of his own. She noticed his pitiable fidget with a comic frown, but comprehended not its cause, till, at last, she actually saw the half visible box hastily re-concealed by its bearer. "And what did she then?" would continue the worshipper, in a Roger de Coverley strain. "Sir! 't is a witch, a very goddess; the tact, the benevolence, of that ingenious, ready-witted angel!-Keeping her place directly fronting me, she beckoned to a male relative of hers; by her |