Page:The Anatomy of Tobacco.pdf/43

 stored therein. And from that time no man in Europe saw tobacco for nigh two thousand years, but yet the knowledge of it was kept alive by tradition and handed down till it was restored again. And when it was so restored, those wise men who had before known of it only by theory were able to ascertain empirically whether their ideas concerning it were true, and thus was formed the modern school of Pipe Philosophers. Yet by their assuming names such as Margites Dummerkopfius, Linalaudulus de Tamesi, Jacobulus Corvinus, and the like, and by their writing in such a way as shall only be understood by the initiate, their very existence hath been ignored and passed over.

But in the two thousand three hundred and forty-fifth year after the journey of Pythagoras at a chapter of the principal among the Pipe Philosophers it was determined that it would be well to promulgate in some way the aforesaid Philosophy; and the lot being taken the office