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

had a covert aim at
Buckingham. I have not his Massinger, and, therefore, do not know
whether he is aware that this was ever ascribed to that author; if he is
not, he will be interested in the circumstance, and may think it worthy
of further inquiry."
As others may be led by this hint to enter on such an inquiry, I would
suggest that it may save much trouble if they first satisfy themselves
that the Life of Sejanus by P. Mathieu may not have been the tract
which fell in Southey's way. It is to be found in a volume entitled
"_Unhappy Prosperity_, expressed in the History of Ælius Selanus and
Philippa the _Catanian_, with observations upon the fall of Sejanus.
Lastly, Certain Considerations upon the life and Services of Monsieur
Villeroy, translated out of the original [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.
* * * * *

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