Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/204

188 " Here is a powder, concealed in this paper, of which, if I should speak to the worth, nine thousand volumes were but as one page, that page as a line, that line as a word ; so short is this pilgrimage of man (which some call life) to the expressing of it. Would I reflect on the price ? why, the whole world is but as an empire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that bank as a private purse, to the purchase of it. I will only tell you ; it is the powder that made Venus a goddess (given her by Apollo), that kept her perpetually young, cleared her wrinkles, firmed her gums, filled her skin, coloured her hair ; from her derived to Helen, and at the sack of Troy unfortunately lost : till now, in this our age, it was as happily recovered, by a studious antiquary, out of some ruins of Asia, who sent a moiety of it to the court of France (but much sophisticated), wherewith the ladies now colour their hair. The rest, at this present, remains with me ; extracted to a quintessence : so that whatever it but touches, in youth it perpetually preserves, in age restores the complexion." When he pauses to take breath in this prodigious flux of oratory, the interval is filled by "a verse extempore" in honour of the medicaments by his dwarf Nano, who acts as the buffoon always ac- companying such a mountebank. Thus sings Nano to the glory of the oil : — That to their books put med'cines all in, But known this secret, they had never (Of which they will be guilty ever) Been murderers of so much paper. Or wasted many a hurtless taper ; No Indian drug had e'er been famed. Tobacco, sassafras not named ; Ne yet of guacum one small stick, sir, Nor Raymond Lully's great elixir. Ne had been known the Danish Gonswart, Or Paracelsus with his long sword." Another proof, if proof were needed, of the then high pharmaceutic reputation of tobacco ; a reputation, be
 * ' Had old Hippocrates, or Galen,