Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/213

 BEN JONSON 197 mentioned ; ' when once kindled,' Fuller says, ' it is hardly quenched ; ' and Upton observes, from Cardan, that * a coal of juniper, if covered with its own ashes, will retain its fire a whole year.' " Juniper was, more- over, burnt in Jonson's time to sweeten the air of chambers. Thus, in the character of the persons prefixed to *' Every Man out of his Humour," Deliro is described as " a good doting citizen, ... a fellow sincerely besotted on his own wife, and so rapt with a conceit of her perfections, that he simply holds him- self unworthy of her. . . . He doth sacrifice twopence in juniper to her every morning before she rises, and wakes her with villainous out-of-tune music, which she, out of her contempt (though not out of her judg- ment), is sure to dislike." See also " Cynthia's Revels," Act ii., Sc. I. We are horrified to learn from this same speech of Face into what loathsome depths of iniquity the black art of sophisticating pure tobacco had plunged so soon after its blessed introduction into common use here. But this was chiefly the fault of that sapient fool or fatuous sage, James I., who, by one of the earliest Acts of his reign, in 1604, increased the importation duty from twopence to six shillings and tenpence per lb. (probably equal to 30s. now), an advance at one wild leap of exactly four thousand per cent. ! A pretty premium upon adulteration and smuggling. " In consequence of this, nearly a stagna- tion of the trade took place ; and Stitii informs us that so low was it reduced in 161 1 [the year after the pro- duction of the "Alchemist"], that only 142,085 lbs. weight were imported from Virginia, not amounting to one-sixth of the previous annual supply " (" Nico.