Tobacco
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NATURE SONGS
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Popular Rhymes And Nursery Tales
Tobacco hic,
Will make you well
If you be sick.
Tobacco was formerly held in great esteem as a medicine. Sickness was
the old term for illness of any kind, and is no doubt the more correct
expression.
It may just be worth a passing notice to observe, that Shakespeare never
mentions tobacco, nor alludes to it even indirectly. What a brilliant
subject for a critic! A treatise might be written to prove from this
circumstance that the great poet was not in the habit of smoking; or, on
the contrary, that he was so great an admirer of the pernicious weed,
that, being unable to allude to it without a panegyric, he very wisely
eschewed the subject for fear of giving offence to his royal master, the
author of the 'Counterblast.' The discussion, at all events, would be
productive of as much utility as the disputes which have occasioned so
many learned letters respecting the orthography of the poet's name.