Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/267

 2" S. NO 13., MAR. 29. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

259

verse, in imitation of Lucretius, by Kaphael Tho- rius, a Dutch (French?) bard, entitled "De Paeto seu Tobaco," to which a place has been assigned in the Musis Anglicans, vol. i. A resume of this poem is given in " Horse Nicotianse" (vol. v. p. 47. &c. of Slackwood's Magazine), and is there fol- lowed by Charles Lamb's " Farewell to Tobacco." I agree completely with the writer in Blachivood, when, quoting from the original of Paul Hentzner's Travels into England (A.D. 1598) the following, which I give from the translation in Dodsley's Fugitive Pieces, vol. ii. p. 269^, he remarks that,

" It is amusing enough to observe the pains which our German takes to give his own countrymen some faint idea of an utensil which is now so familiar to them as the tobacco pipe. Speaking of the Bear Garden, Hentzner says, ' At these spectacles, and every where else, the En- glish are constantly smoking tobacco, and in this manner : they have pipes on purpose, made of clay, into the fur- ther end of which they put the herb, so dry that it may be rubbed into powder, and, putting fire to it, they draw the smoke into their mouths, which they puff out again through their nostrils, like funnels ; along with it plenty of phlegm and defluxion from the head. In these thea- tres, fruits, such as apples, pears, and nuts, according to the season, are carried about to be sold, as well as ale and wine," &c.

Thorius was a noted ban vivant, and once took advantage of the learned Peiresc, whose powers as a wine-bibber by no means equalled his own, to pledge him in an enormous beaker of wine ; nor would he accept any of Peiresc's excuses for get- ting off. But when the other, having challenged Thorius in turn, filled the beaker with water, it cost our poet many a qualm to swallow the whole of such an unwonted draught. Bayle says,

" Je pense qu'il ne doutoit guere de la maxime, que les Buveurs d'eau ne sauroient faire de bon vers. De sa vie, peut-etre, il ne se trouva plus embarrasse, que quand M. de Peiresc 1'obligea de boire un Grand Verre d'Eau : le Roi Jaques souhaita qu'on lui fit ce conte, qui est fort risible." Diet. Critiq., torn. iii. p. 2875.

See, too, Gassendus, in vit. Peiresk ad ann. 1606. Thorius was long a favourite about the court of James I., and died in London of the plague in 1629.

Nothing, says the writer in Blackwood, can be finer than the commencement, in which he in- vokes (Pieridum loco) a certain celebrated smok- ing knight of Amsterdam, by name Paddaeus, or Van Paddy.

" Innocuos calices et amicam Vatibus herbam Vimque datum folio, et hcti miracula fumi Aggredior. Tu, qui censu decoratus Equestri Virtutem titulis, titulos virtutibus ornas, Antiquum et Phocbi nato promittis houorem, Tu, Paddaje, fave."

The poem was translated into English verse by Henry Player, who appended the original in 1716, dedicating his version to Mrs. Mary Owen, who appears to have been a learned lady and a snuff- taker, and the latter to Solomon Lowe, her tutor.

Player transfers the honours of the invocation to Sir Samuel Garth and Sir Richard Blackmore :

" Thou, Garth, whom virtues grace with native worth, And honors not inferior to thy birth ; In whom united both appear more bright, And give a lustre to each other's light ; Befriend a muse, who, destitute of fame, Seeks honor and protection from thy name : And thou, great Blackmore, favour my design, In whom Apollo's gifts conspicuous join," &c.

Vulcanius, Comment, in Aristotel. de Mund., p. 259., speaks of Thorius as "Bellio*, Medicus, et Poeta eximius."

An earlier translation into English had ap- peared, with the following title :

" Hymnus Tabaci ; a Poem in Honor of Tobacco, Hero- ically compos'd by Raphael Thorius, made English by Peter Hausted, Master of Arts, Cambridge. Lond., 1651. 8vo."

This I have never seen ; but Player has brought out his author with all the paraphernalia of testi- monia auctorum, lists of his works, of editions of this on Tobacco (the editio princeps of which ap- pears to have been anterior to 1625), Judida virorum Doctorum, &c. Amongst the latter, Ad- dison is adduced, as editor of Musce Anglicance, apologising in the preface for the insertion of a work by a foreigner :

" Quia ab infantulo hie enutritus vixit, scripsitque, et cuicunque telluri originem, Angliae certe Poesin debet

sin peregrinum cogites, hospitii et amicitia? jure,

apud Anglos semper sancto, fruatur."

In the Tabula Auctorum he calls him M.D. Londinens.

One of the authors cited calls Thorius "Anglia? poetarum, Jacobi regis judicio, antesignanus." This was much from the royal author of The Counterblast. Bayle (Did. Critiq., nbi supra, says, " A fleuri en Angleterre, sous le roy Jaques." Another poem of his, on winter, was translated and published under the following title : " Cheimonopegnion, or a Winter Song, by Raphael Thorius, newly translated, London, 1651."

Allow me to ask a place for the following, and I have done :

Omnibus P<eti fugis.

" Morbifugse vires planta?, miracula stirpis Ccelitus ostensa3, partes didueit in omnes Thorius ; et primo fumos orditur ab ovo. Vos, quibus ad Pxtum vigilanti stertere naso, Fumigerisve placet replere vaporibus auras, Ore favete omnes. Coelo delabitur alto Planta beata, udo non aspernanda cerebro : Scilicet in mediis habitat vis enthea fumis; Et parvo ingentes clauduntur cortice vires. Ludicra narrantur ; sed et hrec quoque seria ducant ; Veraque sub ticto latitat sapientia Pffito."

Ludovic. a Kinschot.

On referring to A Paper of Tobacco, by Chatto,

have been a Protestant refugee.
 * Query, from the place of his birth ? lie appears to