“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.