Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/179

 BEN JONSON 163 Was not the Golden Age the best ? — yet it had to give way to the Silver, and this again to the Iron (if the poets will graciously permit) ; and are we not now in the age of Brass ? Even so the Elizabethans repre- sent an age of Tobacco, the Queen Anne's men an age of Coffee, the late George III.'s men an age of Revolutions, the Victorians an age of Cant. And as among the brazen multitudes we have still a few men of iron, of silver, and even of gold; so among the canting multitudes we have still some men of revolu- tion, of coffee, and even a few men of genius inspired by tobacco. It has, too, been often remarked that Shakespeare never mentions or alludes to tobacco, though he may have smoked many a good pipe with Raleigh himself at the " Mermaid." It is to be feared that the remark is deplorably well founded. I myself have carefully scrutinised his works, in the hope of dis- covering some indication of his knowledge of its existence and use, but have not been able to find a single one that I can consider certain. Of course there are passages which a fumous special pleader might press into the service, but I scorn the wresting and racking of texts. Neither in Othello^ nor Mac- beth, nor Lear ; neither in Anthony and Cleopatra, Julius CcBsar, nor even in Coriolanus, can the candid investigator light upon traces of the common custom of smoking. It is not recorded that Hamlet ever took a pipe to soothe his melancholy, or that Ttmon of Athens offered cigars of a superior brand at his else sumptuous entertainments. In Troilus and Cressida we have Achilles and Ajax always fuming without the aid of even a cigarette. Many of the