] midsummer. around this lovely valley rise the purple hills of paradise. oh, softly on yon banks of haze her rosy face the summer lays! becalmed along the azure sky, the argosies of cloudland lie, whose shores, with many a shining rift, far off their pearl-white peaks uplift. through all the long midsummer-day the meadow-sides are sweet with hay. i seek the coolest sheltered seat just where the field and forest meet, where grow the pine-trees tall and bland, the ancient oaks austere and grand, and fringy roots and pebbles fret the ripples of the rivulet. i watch, the mowers as they go through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row; with even stroke their scythes they swing, in tune their merry whetstones ring; behind the nimble youngsters run and toss the thick swaths in the sun; the cattle graze; while, warm and still, slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill, and bright, when summer breezes break, the green wheat crinkles like a lake. the butterfly and humble-bee come to the pleasant woods with me; quickly before me runs the quail, the chickens skulk behind the rail, high up the lone wood-pigeon sits, and the woodpecker pecks and flits. sweet woodland music sinks and swells, the brooklet rings its tinkling bells, the swarming insects drone and hum, the partridge beats his throbbing drum. the squirrel leaps among the boughs, and chatters in his leafy house. the oriole flashes by; and, look! into the mirror of the brook, where the vain blue-bird trims his coat, two tiny feathers fall and float. as silently, as tenderly, the down of peace descends on me. oh, this is peace! i have no need of friend to talk, of book to read: a dear companion here abides; close to my thrilling heart he hides; the holy silence is his voice: i lie and listen, and rejoice. tobacco. tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosophers stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases! a good vomit, i confess, a virtuous herb, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used. but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lauds, health: hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul!burton. _anatomy of melancholy_. a delicate subject? very true; and one which must be handled as tenderly as _biscuit de sèvres_, or venetian glass. whichever side of the question we may assume, as the most popular, or the most right, the feelings of so large and respectable a minority are to be consulted, that it behooves the critic or reviewer to move cautiously, and, imitating the actions of a certain feline household reformer, to show only the _patte de velours_. the omniscient burton seems to have reached the pith of the matter. the two hostile sections of his proposition, though written so long since, would very well fit the smoker and the reformer of to-day. that portion of the world which is enough advanced to advocate reforms is entirely divided against itself on the subject of tobacco. immense interests, economical, social, and, as some conceive, moral, are arrayed on either side. the reformers have hitherto had the better of it in point of argument, and have pushed the attack with most vigor, yet with but trifling results. smokers and chewers, _et id omne genus_, mollified by their habits, or laboring under guilty consciences, have made but a feeble defence. nor in all this is there anything new. it is as old as the knowledge of the weed among thinking men,in other words, about three centuries. the english adventurers under drake and raleigh and hawkins, and the multitude of minor protestant filibusters who followed in their train, had no sooner imported the habit of smoking tobacco, among the other outlandish customs which they brought home from the new indies and the spanish main, than the higher powers rebuked the practice, which novelty and its own fascinations were rendering so fashionable, in language more forcible than elegant. the philippic of king james is so apposite that we may be pardoned for transcribing one oft-quoted sentence:but herein is not only a great vanity, but a great contempt of gods good gifts, that the sweetness of mans breath, being a good gift of god, should be wilfully corrupted by this stinking smoke. a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmfull to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof neerest resembling the horrible stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomless.[a] [footnote a: _counterblast to tobacco_.] the popes urban viii. and innocent xii. fulminated edicts of excommunication against all who used tobacco in any form; from which we may conclude that the new habit was spreading rapidly over christendom. and not only the successors of st. peter, but those also of the prophet, denounced the practice, the sultan amurath iv. making it punishable with death. the viziers of turkey spitted the noses of smokers with their own pipes; the more considerate shah of persia cut them entirely off. the knout greeted in russia the first indulgence, and death followed the second offence. in some of the swiss cantons smoking was considered a crime second only to adultery. modern republics are not quite so severe. it is not to be supposed that in england the royal pamphlet had its desired effect. for we find that james laid many rigid sumptuary restrictions upon the practice which he abominated, based chiefly upon the extravagance it occasioned,the expenses of some smokers being estimated at several hundred pounds a year. the king, however, had the sagacity to secure a preëmption-right as early as 1620. yet how could the practice but have increased, when, as malcolm relates the tradition, such men as sir walter raleigh and sir hugh middleton sat smoking at their doors?for the public manner in which it was exhibited, and the aromatic flavor inhaled by the passengers, exclusive of the singularity of the circumstance and the eminence of the parties, could hardly have failed to favor its dissemination. the silver-tongued joshua sylvester hoped to aid the royal cause by writing a poem entitled, tobacco battered, and the pipes shattered, (about their ears who idly idolize so base and barbarous a weed, or at least-wise overlove so loathsome a vanity,) by a volley of holy shot thundered from mount helicon. if the smoothness of the verses equalled the euphony of the title, this must have proved a moving appeal. stow contents himself with calling tobacco a stinking weed, so much abused to gods dishonor