Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 8:

Cowper's aversion from tobacco could not have been very strong, for he encouraged his friend to smoke in the famous Summer House at Olney, which was the poet's outdoor study. Bull smoked Orinoco tobacco, which he carried in one of the tobacco-boxes, which in those days were much more commonly used than pouches, and this box on one occasion he accidentally left behind him at Olney. Cowper returned it to him with the well-known rhymed epistle dated June 22, 1782, and beginning:

If reading verse be your delight,
'Tis mine as much, or more, to write;
But what we would, so weak is man,
Lies oft remote from what we can.

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The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 11:

Of course, what one might do in the country and what one might do in town were two quite different things. The following story was told nearly twenty years ago of the late Duke of Devonshire. An American tourist began talking one day to a quiet-looking man who was smoking outside an inn on the Chatsworth estate, and, taking the man for the inn-keeper, expressed his admiration of the Duke of Devonshire's domain. "Quite a place, isn't it?" said the American. "Yes, a pleasant place enough," returned the Englishman. "The fellow who owns it must be worth a mint of money," said the American, through his cigar-smoke. "Yes, he's comfortably off," agreed the other. "I wonder if I could get a look at the old chap," said the stranger, after a short silence; "I should like to see what sort of a bird he is." Puff, puff, went the English cigar, and then said the English voice, trying hard to control itself: "If you"-puff-"look hard"-puff, puff-"in this direction, you"-puff, puff-"can tell in a minute." "You, you!" faltered the American, getting up, "why, I thought you were the landlord!" "Well, so I am," said the Duke, "though I don't perform the duties." "I stay here," he added, with a twinkle in his eye, "to be looked at."

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