193

A PINCH OF SNUFF.

CONCLUDed.

ROM the respect which we showed in our last to scented snuffs, and from other indica

tions which will doubtless have escaped us in our ignorance of his art, the scientific snuff-taker will have concluded that we are no brother of the box. And he will be right. But we hope we only give the greater proof thereby of the toleration that is in us, and our wish not to think ill of a practice merely because it is not our own. We confess we are inclined to a charitable regard, nay, provided it be handsomely and cleanly managed, to a certain respect, for snuff-taking, out of divers considerations: first, as already noticed, because it helps to promote good-will; second, because we have known some very worthy snuff-takers; third, out of our regard for the snuff-taking times of Queen Anne, and the wits of France; and last, because in the benevolence and imaginativeness and exceeding width of our philosophy (which fine terms we apply to it in order to give a hint to those who might consider it a weakness and superstition), —— because we have a certain veneration for all great events and prevailing customs, that have given a character to the history of society in the course of ages. It would be hard to get us to think contemptuously of the mummies of Egypt, of the cere

moniousness of the Chinese, of the betel-nut of the Turks and Persians, nay, of the garlic of the south of Europe; and so of the tea-drinking, coffee-drinking, tobacco-smoking, and snuff-taking which have come to us from the Eastern and American nations. We know not what great providential uses there might be in such customs, or what worse or more frivolous things they prevent, till the time comes for displacing them. "The wind bloweth where it listeth; and so, for aught we know, doth the "cloud" of the tobacco-pipe. We are resolved, for our parts, not to laugh with the "scorner," but even to make merry with submission; nay, to undermine (when we feel compelled to do so) with absolute tenderness to the thing dilapidated. Let the unphilosophic lover of tobacco (if there be such a person), to use a phrase of his own, "put that in his pipe, and smoke it.”

But there is one thing that puzzles us in the history of the Indian weed and its pulverization; and that is, how lovers and ladies ever came to take snuff. In England, perhaps, it was never much done by the latter, till they grew too old to be "particular," or thought themselves too sure of their lovers; but in France, where the animal spirits think less of obstacles in the way of inclination, and where the resolution to please and be pleased is, or was, of a fancy less nice and more accommodating, we are not aware that the ladies in the time of the Voltaires and Du Chatelets ever thought themselves either too old to love, or too young to take snuff. We confess, whether it is from the punctilios of a colder imagination or the perils incidental to a warmer one, that, although we

are interested in comprehending the former privilege, we never could do the same with the latter. A bridegroom in one of the periodical essayists, describing his wife's fondness for rouge and carmine, complains that he can never make pure, unsophisticated way to her cheek, but is obliged, like Pyramus in the story, to kiss through a wall,—to salute through a crust of paint and washes:

'Wall, vile wall, which did those lovers sunder."

This is bad enough; and, considering perhaps a due healthiness of skin, worse: yet the object of paint is to imitate health and loveliness; the wish to look well is in it. But snuff!- turtle-doves don't take snuff. A kiss is surely not a thing to be "sneezed at."

Fancy two lovers in the time of Queen Anne, or Louis the Fifteenth, each with snuff-box in hand, who have just come to an explanation, and who, in the hurry of their spirits, have unthinkingly taken a pinch, just at the instant when the gentleman is going to salute the lips of his mistress! He does so, finds his honest love as frankly returned, and is in the act of bringing out the words, "Charming creature!" when a sneeze overtakes him!·

"Cha Cha Cha - Charming creature!"

What a situation! A sneeze! O Venus! where is such a thing in thy list?

The lady, on her side, is under the like malapropos influence, and is obliged to divide one of the sweetest of all bashful and loving speeches with the shock of the sneeze respondent:

"O Richard! Sho- Sho- Sho- Should you

Imagine it.

think ill of me for this!"

We have nothing to say against the sneeze abstract. In all nations it seems to have been counted of great significance, and worth respectful attention, whether advising us of good or ill. Hence the "God bless you!" still heard among us when people sneeze; and the "Felicità!" ("Good luck to you!") of the Italians. A Latin poet, in one of his most charming effusions, though not, we conceive, with the delicacy of a Greek, even makes Cupid sneeze at sight of the happiness of two lovers:

"Hoc ut dixit, Amor, sinistram ut ante,
Dextram sternuit approbationem.”

CATULLUS.

"Love, at this charming speech and sight,

Sneezed his sanction from the right."

That omen

But he does not make the lovers sneeze. remained for the lovers of the snuff-box,-people more social than nice.

We have no recollection of any self-misgiving in this matter, on the part of the male sex, during the times we speak of. They are a race who have ever thought themselves warranted in taking liberties which they do not allow their gentler friends; and we cannot call to mind any passage in the writings of the French or English wits in former days, implying the least distrust of his own right and propriety and charmingness, in taking snuff, on the part of the gentleman in love. The "beaux," marquisses, men of fashion, Sir Harry Wildairs, &c., all talk of and

use and pique themselves on their snuff-boxes, without the slightest suspicion that there is any thing in them to which courtship and elegance can object; and we suppose this is the case still, where the snuff-taker, though young in age, is old in habit. Yet we should doubt, were we in his place. He cannot be certain how many women may have refused his addresses on that single account; nor, if he marries, to what secret sources of objection it may give rise. To be clean is one of the first duties at all times; to be the reverse, or to risk it, in the least avoidable respect, is perilous in the eyes of that passion, which, of all others, is at once the most lavish and the most nice, which makes the greatest allowance for all that belongs to it, and the least for whatever is cold or foreign, or implies a coarse security. A very loving nature, however, may have some one unlovely habit, which a wise party on either side may correct, if it have any address. The only passage which we remember meeting with in a book, in which this license assumed by the male sex is touched upon, is in a pleasant comedy translated from the French some years ago, and brought upon the stage in London, the "Green Man." Mr. Jones, we believe, was the translator. He also enacted the part of the lover; and very pleasantly he did it. It was one of his best performances. Luckily for our present purpose, he had a very sweet assistant in the person of Miss Blanchard, a young actress of that day, who, after charming the town with the sprightly delicacy of her style, and with a face. better than handsome, prematurely quitted it, to their great regret, though, we believe, for the best of all