I have writ to you three or four times, to desire you would take notice of an impertinent Custom the Women, the fine Women, have lately fallen into, of taking Snuff. [1] This silly Trick is attended with such a Coquet Air in some Ladies, and such a sedate masculine one in others, that I cannot tell which most to complain of; but they are to me equally disagreeable.  Mrs. Saunter is so impatient of being without it, that she takes it as often as she does Salt at Meals; and as she affects a wonderful Ease and Negligence in all her manner, an upper Lip mixed with Snuff and the Sauce, is what is presented to the Observation of all who have the honour to eat with her.  The pretty Creature her Neice does all she can to be as disagreeable as her Aunt; and if she is not as offensive to the Eye, she is quite as much to the Ear, and makes up all she wants in a confident Air, by a nauseous Rattle of the Nose, when the Snuff is delivered, and the Fingers make the Stops and Closes on the Nostrils.  This, perhaps, is not a very courtly Image in speaking of Ladies; that is very true:  but where arises the Offence?  Is it in those who commit, or those who observe it?  As for my part, I have been so extremely disgusted with this filthy Physick hanging on the Lip, that the most agreeable Conversation, or Person, has not been able to make up for it.  As to those who take it for no other end but to give themselves Occasion for pretty Action, or to fill up little Intervals of Discourse, I can bear with them; but then they must not use it when another is speaking, who ought to be heard with too much respect, to admit of offering at that time from Hand to Hand the Snuff-Box.  But Flavilla is so far taken with her Behaviour in this kind, that she pulls out her Box (which is indeed full of good Brazile) in the middle of the Sermon; and to shew she has the Audacity of a well-bred Woman, she offers it the Men as well as the Women who sit near her:  But since by this Time all the World knows she has a fine Hand, I am in hopes she may give her self no further Trouble in this matter.  On Sunday was sennight, when they came about for the Offering, she gave her Charity with a very good Air, but at the same Time asked the Churchwarden if he would take a Pinch.  Pray, Sir, think of these things in time, and you will oblige,

  SIR,

  Your most humble servant.

T.

[Footnote 1:  Charles Lillie, the perfumer, from whose shop at the corner of Beaufort Buildings the original Spectators were distributed, left behind him a book of receipts and observations, The British Perfumer, Snuff Manufacturer, and Colourmans Guide, of which the MS. was sold with his business, but which remained unpublished until 1822.  He opens his Part III. on Snuffs with an account of the Origin of Snuff-taking in England, the practice being one that had become fashionable in his day, and only about eight years before the appearance of the Spectator.