"
Among other offensive habits, "The Tatler" discountenances the custom of
taking snuff, then common among ladies.
"I have been these three years persuading Sagissa[8] to leave it
off; but she talks so much, and is so learned, that she is above
contradiction. However, an accident brought that about, which all
my eloquence could never accomplish. She had a very pretty fellow
in her closet, who ran thither to avoid some company that came to
visit her; she made an excuse to go to him for some implement they
were talking of. Her eager gallant snatched a kiss; but being
unused to snuff, some grains from off her upper lip made him sneeze
aloud, which alarmed her visitors, and has made a discovery."
[It is impossible to say what effect this ridicule produced upon the
snuff-taking public, but the custom gradually declined. A hundred years
later, James Beresford, a fellow of Merton, places among the "Miseries
of Human Life," the "Leaving off Snuff at the request of your Angel,"
and writes the following touching farewell.]
"Box thou art closed, and snuff is but a name!
It is decreed my nose shall feast no more!
To me no more shall come--whence dost it come?--
The precious pulvil from Hibernia's shore!
"Virginia, barren be thy teeming soil,
Or may the swallowing earthquake gulf thy fields!
Fribourg and Pontet! cease your trading toil,
Or bankruptcy be all the fruit it yields!
"And artists! frame no more in tin or gold,
Horn, paper, silver, coal or skin, the chest,
Foredoomed in small circumference to hold
The titillating treasures of the West!"
The fellows of Merton seem to have discovered some hidden efficacy in
snuff.
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