Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/196

180 appears to be a coinage of Ben's. As to ihepatoun and the receipt reciprocal, they remain esoteric, and we are left to mere conjecture. Gifford remarks that as patons, in French, are those small pellets of paste with which poultry are crammed, making of the patoun may mean moulding the tobacco, which was then always cut small, into some fantastic or fashionable shape for the pipe. Petun, we know, was one of the Indian names of tobacco, and was adopted in France, being commonly used by St. Amant and other jovial French writers about contemporary with Jonson, though 1 believe it is now obsolete ; and paioim may have some connection with petun. With regard to the receipt reciprocal, Gifford suggests that it not im- probably meant the passing of the pipe from one to the other; but there would be no mystery in this. He alleges the riiig, in the passage already cited from Decker's "Gull's Hornbook," as meaning the same; but I think it more probably meant puffing out the smoke so as to form rings of which the one should pass through the other, &c., a not uncommon practice in our own day. In conclusion, on these occult matters, I quote the memorandum by Steevens which Whalley transcribed on the margin of his copy : " Mr. Reed, who may be considered as the high-priest of black letter, declares no book to have been written containing instructions how to take tobacco [a woeful want !]. You have, therefore, not a single auxiliary on the present subject, except your own sagacity; and must of course be content to rank the patoun, &c., among the 'mysteries not yet extant.' — Aug. 29, 1781." Leaving these abstruse and obscure mysteries, we