Taking tobacco was clearly an accomplishment to be studied seriously.  Shift, a professor of the art in Jonson’s play, puts up a bill in St. Paul’s—­the recognized centre for advertisements and commercial business of every kind—­in which he offers to teach any young gentleman newly come into his inheritance, who wishes to be as exactly qualified as the best of the ordinary-hunting gallants are—­“to entertain the most gentlemanlike use of tobacco; as first, to give it the most exquisite perfume; then to know all the delicate sweet forms for the assumption of it; as also the rare corollary and practice of the Cuban ebolition, euripus and whiff, which he shall receive, or take in here at London, and evaporate at Uxbridge, or farther, if it please him.”

Taking the whiff, it has been suggested, may have been either a swallowing of the smoke, or a retaining it in the throat for a given space of time; but what may be meant by the “Cuban ebolition” or the “euripus” is perhaps best left to the imagination.  “Ebolition” is simply a variant of “ebullition,” and “ebullition,” as applied with burlesque intent to rapid smoking—­the vapour bubbling rapidly from the pipe-bowl—­is intelligible enough, but why Cuban?  “Euripus” was the name, in ancient geography, of the channel between Euboea (Negropont) and the mainland—­a passage which was celebrated for the violence and uncertainty of its currents—­and hence the name was occasionally applied by our older writers to any strait or sea-channel having like characteristics.  The use of the word in connexion with tobacco may, like that of “ebolition,” have some reference to furious smoking, but the meaning is not clear.

If one contemporary writer may be believed, some of these early smokers acquired the art of emitting the smoke through their ears, but a healthy scepticism is permissible here.

The accomplished Shift promises a would-be pupil in the art of taking tobacco that if he pleases to be a practitioner, he shall learn in a fortnight to “take it plausibly in any ordinary, theatre, or the Tiltyard, if need be, in the most popular assembly that is.”  The Tiltyard adjoined Whitehall Palace and was the frequent scene of sports in which Queen Elizabeth took the greatest delight.  Here took place, not only tilting properly so called, but rope-walking performances, bear- and bull-baiting, dancing and other diversions which her Majesty held in high favour.  Consequently the Tiltyard was constantly the scene of courtly gatherings; and if smoking were permitted on such occasions—­as Shift’s boasting promises would appear to indicate—­then it may be reasonably inferred that Queen Elizabeth did not entertain the objections to the new practice that her successor, King James, set forth with such vehemence in his famous “Counterblaste to Tobacco.”  There is, however, no positive evidence one way or the other, to show what the attitude of the Virgin Queen towards tobacco really was.  A tradition as to her smoking herself on one occasion is referred to in a subsequent chapter—­that on “Smoking by Women.”