Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/266

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

g. No 13., MAE. 29. '56.

have been Henry Parker, a Carmelite Friar of Doncaster ; his words on the subject are given at full, in the Church of our Fathers, t. i. pp. 447, 448., and in part by CBTREP. Surely the tes- timony of an English churchman, on a common usage of the English liturgy, is more to be trusted than that of a foreigner, who, the probability is, never set his foot in this country. On this, as well as not a few other liturgical subjects, the Compendiouse Treatyse, or Dialoge of Dives and Pauper, may be fairly taken as evidence of our old English ritualism, and thus affords an answer to CEYREP'S second Query.

3. " Can we," asks CEYREP, " find any allusion to it in our numeral lists of albs belonging to English churches and cathedrals ? " I answer yes. In the inventory of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, this ornament is specified, as well as in that of the Royal Chapel, Windsor, but both in one and the other in the plural number ; and if CEYREP will look into the Church of our Fathers, t. i. p. 446, he will find the passages which mention them among the Parurce as spaulce, spatularia, and parurcB humerales. D. ROCK.

Newick, Uckfield.

SONG ON TOBACCO '. " RAPHAELIS THORII TABA- CUM, POEMA," LIBB. II., ETC.

(2 nd S. i. 115. 182.) " Disce tubo genitos baurire et reddere fames."

" Non ex fumo lucem, sed ex luce dare fumum."

Hora Nicotiana.

I am as anxious as your correspondent J. B. to obtain a copy of the genuine song. Four stanzas have been supplied (p. 182.) by T. Q. C. I for- ward, from the columns of The Newcastle Journal, what is evidently a modernised and diluted ver- sion of it. There are ten stanzas divided into two parts, and the editor, who copied from Erskine's Gospel Sonnets, attributes them, as you will see, to " Erskine." At all events the subjoined appears to be a mere refacciamento. I had an impression that the genuine song should be assigned to Dean Aldrich, but it would appear that they belong to an earlier period.

"Meditations on Smoking. ERSKINE.

PART I.

" The Indian weed, now withered quite, Tho' green at noon, cut down at night, Shows thy decay : All flesh is hay. Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

" The pipe, so lily-like and weak, * Does thus thy mortal state bespeak :

Thou art even such,

Gone with a touch. Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

" And, when the smoke ascends on high, Then thou behold'st the vanity

Of worldly stuff

Gone with a puff. Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

" And, when the pipe grows foul within, Think on thy soul, defil'd with sin :

For then the fire

It does require ; Thus think, and smoke tobacco :

" And seest the ashes cast away, Then to thyself thou mayest say,

That to dust

Return thou must. Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

" Was this small plant for thee cut down ? So was the plant of great renown, ,

Which Mercy sends

For jiobler ends. Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

" Doth juice medicinal proceed From such a naughty foreign weed?

Then what's the power

Of Jesse's flower ? Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

" The promise, like the pipe, inlays And, by the mouth of faith, conveys What virtue flows From Sharon's rose. Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

" In vain th' unlighted pipe you blow. Your pains in outward means are so,

Till heavenly fire

Your heart inspire. Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

" The smoke, like burning incense, towers ; So should a praying heart of yours

With ardent cries

Surmount the skies. Thus think, and smoke tobacco."

I cannot but think that much of the raciness of the genuine song has evaporated here, and there- fore beg to add my solicitations to those of J. B. for a copy of it, as quoted in Rob Roy. Mean- while I would offer, from Lusus Westmonasteri- enses (p. 24., edit. 1730), the following; ^whether suggestive of or suggested by the lines in ques- tion, I must learn the respective dates ere giving. an opinion. Dr. Aldrich, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, was a liberal patron of the weed, and, as the following declares, had written some verses, at all events in a kindred strain :

" Aldricius nobis nomen memorabile, Pseti Omnia qui novit eommoda, sic cecinit. Paetum mane viget, marcescit nocte, caditque :

Primo mane viget sic homo, nocte cadit. Ut red it in cineres incensum ; mortuus omnis

Sic redit in cineres, fitque quod ante fuit.

Quis non e tubulis discat nunc reddere fumos,

Vivere cum doceant et bene posse mori."

To the summary of Nicotian literature, given by B. H. C. (p. 182. supra), let me add the Hymnus Talaci, a poem in two books, written, in Latin