Notes and Queries, Number 44, August 31, 1850 | Page 9

[French] by _S'r T. H._[_awkins_], _second edition_, 12'o. London, 1639."
This was just eleven years after Buckingham met his fate at the hands of Felton. How long the interval between the first and this, the second edition, may have been, I cannot tell. Nor do I know enough of the politics of the time to determine whether anything can be inferred from the fact that the translation is dedicated to William Earl of Salisbury, or to warrant me in saying that these illustrations of the fate of royal favourites may have been brought before the English public with any view to the case of George Villiers. A passage, however, in Mathieu's dedication of the original "to the king," seems to render it not improbable, certainly not inapplicable:
"You (Sir) shall therein [in this history] behold, that _a prince ought to be very carefull to conserve his authority entire. Great ones_ [court favourites] _here may learne_, it is not good to play with the generous {216} Lyon though he suffer it, and that favours are precipices for such as abuse them."
Having referred to this work of Mathieu's, I shall feel obliged to any of your correspondents who will favour me with a notice of it, or of the author.
Balliolensis.
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THE ANTIQUITY OF SMOKING.
I feel much interested in the Query of your correspondent Z.A.Z. (Vol. ii., p. 41.) I had a "Query" something similar, with a "Note" on it, lying by me for some time, which I send you as they stand.--Was not smoking in use in England and other countries before the introduction of tobacco? Whitaker says, a few days after the tower of Kirkstall Abbey fell, 1779, he
"Discovered imbedded in the mortar of the fallen fragments several little smoking pipes, such as were used in the reign of James I. for tobacco; a proof of a fact _which has not been recorded_, that, prior to the introduction of that plant from America, the practice of inhaling the smoke of some indigenous plant or vegetable prevailed in England." (Loidis and Elmete.)
Allowing, then, pipes to have been coeval with the erection of Kirkstall, we find them to have been used in England about 400 years before the introduction of tobacco. On the other hand, as Dr. Whitaker says, we find no record of their being used, or of smoking being practised; and it is almost inconceivable that our ancestors should have had such a practice, without any allusion being made to it by any writers. As to the antiquity of smoking in Ireland, the first of Irish antiquaries, the learned and respected Dr. Petrie, says:
"The custom of smoking is of much greater antiquity in Ireland than the introduction of tobacco into Europe. Smoking pipes made of bronze are frequently found in our Irish _tumuli_, or sepulchral mounds, of the most remote antiquity; and similar pipes, made of baked clay, are discovered daily in all parts of the island. A curious instance of the bathos in sculpture, which also illustrates the antiquity of this custom, occurs on the monument of Donogh O'Brien, king of Thomond, who was killed in 1267, and interred in the Abbey of Corcumrac, in the co. of Clare, of which his family were the founders. He is represented in the usual recumbent posture, with the short pipe or dudeen of the Irish in his mouth."
In the Anthologia Hibernica for May 1793, vol. i. p. 352., we have some remarks on the antiquity of smoking "among the German and Northern nations," who, the writer says, "were clearly acquainted with, and cultivated tobacco, which they smoked through wooden and earthen tubes." He refers to Herod. lib. i. sec. 36.; Strabo, lib. vii. 296.; Pomp. Mela 2, and Solinus, c. 15.
Wherever we go, we see smoking so universal a practice, and people "taking to it so naturally," that we are inclined to believe that it was always so; that our first father enjoyed a quiet puff now and then; (that, like a poet, man "nascitur non fit" a smoker); and that the soothing power of this narcotic tranquillised the soul of the aquatic patriarch, disturbed by the roar of billows and the convulsions of nature, and diffused its peaceful influence over the inmates of the ark. Yes, we are tempted to spurn the question, When and where was smoking introduced? as being equal to When and where was man introduced? Yet, as some do not consider man as a smoking animal "de natu et ab initio," the question may provoke some interesting replies from your learned correspondents.
Jarltzberg.
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SIR GREGORY NORTON, BART.
I am desirous to be informed of the date and particulars of the above baronetcy having been created. In The Mystery of the good old Cause briefly unfolded (1660), it is stated, at p. 26., that Sir Gregory