the devil makes his will, a part of
which reads as follows: 'But turning my legacy to you-ward, Barnaby
Burning-glass, arch-tobacco-taker of England, in ordinaries, upon
stages both common and private, and lastly, in the lodging of your
drab and mistress; I am not a little proud, I can tell you, Barnaby,
that you dance after my pipe so long, and for all counter-blasts and
tobacco-Nashes (which some call railers), you are not blown away,
nor your fiery thirst quenched with the small penny-ale of their
contradictions, but still suck that dug of
damnation
with a long
nipple, still burning that rare Phoenix of Phlegethon, tobacco, that
from her ashes, burned and knocked out, may arise another pipeful.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
) observes that they "are
often absent from their houses, being for the most part husbandmen."
The charge of Dogberry shows probably with no great caricature
what sort of watchmen Shakespeare was familiar with. As late as
1796, Colquhoun observes that the watchmen "were aged and often
superannuated men." '--Sir J. Stephen, _Hist. Crim. Law_ 1. 194 f.
=5. 8. 71 The taking of Tabacco, with which the Diuell=
=Is so delighted.= This was an old joke of the time. In Middleton's
_Black Book_, _Wks._ 8. 42 f.
the devil makes his will, a part of
which reads as follows: 'But turning my legacy to you-ward, Barnaby
Burning-glass, arch-tobacco-taker of England, in ordinaries, upon
stages both common and private, and lastly, in the lodging of your
drab and mistress; I am not a little proud, I can tell you, Barnaby,
that you dance after my pipe so long, and for all counter-blasts and
tobacco-Nashes (which some call railers), you are not blown away,
nor your fiery thirst quenched with the small penny-ale of their
contradictions, but still suck that dug of
damnation
with a long
nipple, still burning that rare Phoenix of Phlegethon, tobacco, that
from her ashes, burned and knocked out, may arise another pipeful.
'
Middleton here refers to Nash's _Pierce Pennilesse_ and King James
I.'s _Counterblast to Tobacco_. The former in his supplication to the
devil says: 'It is suspected you have been a great _tobacco_-taker
in your youth.' King James describes it as 'a custom loathsome to
the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the
lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the
horrid stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.'
The dramatists seem never to grow tired of this joking allusion to
the devil and his pipe of tobacco. Cf. Dekker, _If this be not a good
Play_, _Wks._ 3. 293: 'I think the Diuell is sucking Tabaccho, heeres
such a Mist.' _Ibid._ 327: 'Are there gentleman diuels too? this
is one of those, who studies the black Art, thats to say, drinkes
Tobacco.' Massinger, _Guardian_, _Wks._, p. 344:
--You shall fry first
For a rotten piece of touchwood, and give fire
To the great fiend's nostrils, when he smokes tobacco!
