as breathing-has written so much in praise of the Indian weed,' that the lads I speak of feel it a point of honour to smoke as long as they can. The poor fellows' pale faces and shattered nerves show how painful is the exertion to them: but they keep on with a noble perseverance; and such of them as die of the attempt to emulate our Morgan will have become martyrs, like many of those who have gone before them, to mere smoke.

I wonder that the ladies, whose influence is so powerfully and constantly exerted to preserve those proprieties and that decorum upon which no small portion of our happiness depends, and whose good taste and delicacy of feeling, in the minor as well as the more important affairs of society, we may thank that we do not degenerate into the savages which Nature first made us-I wonder that they do not at once put down this vile habit of smoking. There can be no greater offence against the refinement of sense, which is the characteristic of the softer sex, than the filthy fumes of tobacco. Nothing can be more repugnant to all feminine notions of delicacy than the smell of a vile alehouse. The ladies ought to make a law, prohibiting any man who had committed the enormity of smoking within the past eight-andforty hours from approaching them nearer than the length of a genuine hookah—that is, from sixteen to sixand-thirty feet. They manage these things better in France.' No person who has any pretensions to being aimable ever presumes to smoke. Militaires and gentlemen' of a certain age' transgress, but not with impunity. The first are by habit un peu brutal ;—the ci-devant jeunes hommes nobody cares for. Pigault le Brun, who is one of the best superficial philosophers (and let me tell you the superficial philosophy is a science not less refined, though, I must confess, less profound, than the other) who ever taught his doctrines in that great academy which people call the world, thinks that not to smoke is a quality which entitles a man to some regard, and particularly with the fair divinities who rule our destiny here below. He says of one of his heroes (I forget which) that he was a handsome, sensible, goodtempered young man; and that he was VOL. 1.-No. 2.

usually very well liked by ladies parcequ'il ne parlait pas de lui même, il ne s'enivrait pas, et il ne fumait jamais. For my own part I go farther, and think that not to smoke ought, as times go, to have a place amongst the cardinal virtues.

But whither do I ramble?—I was going to tell you, in obedience to your bidding, of one of the odd places which 1 have seen in London. Thus it was then-As I was walking to the 'Tavistock,' the other morning, a little ragged boy put a bill into my hand. This is one of the few things which are very commonly given away in London. It contained an announcement that a Cigar Divan (Phoebus! what a name!) had been opened in King Street, Covent Garden. The bill was a model of that style of composition which is considered as most likely to attract public attention, and of which, I am told, there are public professors in London, who gain a genteel livelihood by framing advertisements. The bill in question was a delicious morçeau. It began, as well as I recollect, by observing that it was only by the faculties of reasoning and smoking that man was distinguished from the brute creation it eloquently, but concisely, touched upon the graceful expression which the human face divine received from the insertion of real Cabana in one of the cheeks; and the intense air of thoughtfulness and gravity which it spread over the whole person. Then came a touch of the pathetic, in the shape of a lament over the degenerate habits which some smokers had contracted, of polluting by potations of ale, or viler liquors,' the ethereal purity of the cigars' vapours. Filthy pot-houses were spoken of in terms of unqualified abhorrence; and, after weeping as much as the occasion required over the inconvenience which gentlemen, lovers of smoking, and yet haters of filthy beer and vulgar debauchery, were exposed to for want of some retirement in which they could enjoy their tobacco without contamination, the advertiser suddenly dried his tears, and announced that a tobacconist, whose bosom was fired with a truly patriotic ardour, had resolved to open a room in which gentlemen might smoke, and be at the same time re

K

galed with the truly eastern beverages of coffee, sherbet, and orgeat. This establishment was called the Cigar Divan, and hither all curious and rational smokers were invited without delay to repair.

Some evenings afterwards, in an idle hour, after I had been tired at the theatre, I went into this Divan. Inagine to yourself the partition, which separates your own parlour from the snug little study in which you are reading this letter, thrown down; that the walls, instead of being covered with your time-honoured and dusty volumes, are hung with a drapery of rose-coloured calico; that all the chairs are removed out of the room; and that a non-descript accommodation, in shape something like a woolpack, but pulled out to twice its natural length, and meant for people to sit upon, is ranged against the walls. Little tables, covered with newspapers and magazines, are placed within reach of the seats all round the room. For the company, it consisted of solemn-looking young gentlemen, on whom Nature had been so good as to confer very stupid features, and who were endeavouring to improve her bounty by the operation of smoking. They succeeded eminently in looking as much like a drove of asses as any human beings could wish. In so dull a place I should not have staid five minutes, but that I met there with a strange character-Mr. Jingle, the poet-to whom I should like to introduce you. As that, however, is impossible, I will endeavour to do the next best thing-describe him. I met Mr. Jingle at dinner at Daley's. You know he was always famous for collecting oddities. He does not go so far as the man in the Spectator,' who used to classify his monsters, and on one day would have a party of gentle men without noses, and on the next a select society of humpbacked persons; But Daley never sits down to dinner without a phenomenon of some sort. When I last dined with him Mr. Jingle was of the company; and, on the strength of that circumstance, we were now great friends at the Cigar Divan. Mr. Jingle is about six feet high, and lean out of all proportion. The top of his head is bald, and the scanty crop of black

hair which grows at the sides of it hangs down in not the most admired disorder.' He has written, as he did me the favour to tell me, on all subjects, and, I am willing to believe, with equal merit and success in all. He has written tragedies which have been damned; comedies which have made the audience cry; and farces which have made them sleep. He has composed maiden speeches for young and bashful members of Parliament, and last dying speeches for old offenders at Newgate; pamphlets for politicians, sermons for parsons, advertisements for quack doctors, copies of verses for amorous young gentlemen whom the gods had not 'made poetical,' and Valentines for the use of ladies' boardingschools;-and yet, with all this, Mr. Jingle is sometimes ragged, and always poor. He is so fond of scribbling, and cares so little about any other of the pleasures or employments of the world, save smoking and drinking, that he has neglected the opportunities which he has had of establishing himself, and wanders about the town a sort of privileged vagabond, whom every body likes, but whom nobody cares two straws

for.

When I entered the Divan I did not

at first recognise him. He was sitting at a table, and was writing on a dirty scrap of paper with a pencil, smoking all the time with such vigour and earnestness as almost to obscure his round shining dirty bald head. He had soon finished his task, and, looking up, he recognised and advanced to salute me. After I had received his compliments, and paid him mine, I asked (one may always ask such a question of a scribbler) what subject had been engaging his attention.

'I was writing a song,' he said, 'in praise of a cigar. There are few things deserve it better. Lord Byron has said some civil things of it; but he was too fastidious to love it as it ought to be loved. His praise of it is, however, more just than some of the encomiums he bestowed.' He then spouted—

Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides

His hours, and rivals opium and his brides; Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand, Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand;

Divine in Lookas, glorious in a pipe, When tipped with amber mellow, rich and ripe;

Like other charmers wooing the caress More dazzingly when daring in full dress; Yet thy true lovers more admire by far Thy naked beauties-give me a cigar!' I was not sorry when Mr. Jingle got to an end of his quotation, for his emphatic manner had drawn the eyes of the whole of the company to him. He either did not perceive or did not care for this. It was, however, rather uncomfortable for me (although, as you know, I am not too bashful) to be the gaze of such a set as filled this Divan. By way of turning the discourse, I asked Jingle what had brought him thither.

You may well ask,' he replied: a truant disposition, a mere whim; for, of all places in the world, one in which they drink nothing but coffee and lemonade is least suited to a man of my temperament.'

'So I should have thought,' I observed.

'And yet,' he said, 'between friends, I had another reason for coming here, with which, I think, Mr. O'Toole, I may venture to trust you.'

I shuddered at the apprehension of the confidence he was about to repose in me--but there was no retreat ing immediately.

You must know,' he said, laying down his cigar, and thrusting his long nose near to my ear, that I have been recently engaged in a publication which has made some noise in the world. I am the editor-but this is a great secret of the Memoirs of that celebrated Lady of light reputation who is at present so inuch talked of.'

I expressed some astonishment. 'Oh! don't be surprised,' he said, 'I am the author of the several other autobiographies. I wrote the "Life of Hunt."

Well, sir, but what can the Cigar Divan have to do with the " Memoirs of Harriot

ܙܕ ܂

Hush, my dear sir! don't let a word slip. If our plan gets wind we shall be forestalled. The publisher- a clever man-one who has an excellent knowledge of the public taste, and who, next to Lord Kenyon and the Jew at the Whitehorse Cellar, is one of the most illustrious Orangemen in England-has a notion of establishing a new sort of assembly, which will, in all probability, become very popular. He intends to have a large saloon fitted up in some fashionable part of the town, and to have the place called "the Grotto of Calypso." I have not time to explain it to you now; but, if you will do me the favour of a call-I live at No. 16, Craven Buildings, Drury Lane, (rather high up, to be sure; but we who have têtes exaltées like to lodge near the sky)-I will show you the prospectus and drawings of the rooms. All the celestialities of the celebrated Dr. Graham will be nothing to our Grotto. Well, sir, the lady whose name you had just now so nearly uttered is to be the presiding goddess-the Calypso of this establishment. We shall form a jointstock company; and, as shares will certainly be at a premium immediately, I recommend you very much to take some in it. I will let you know when the subscription is to commence.'

I thanked him, and again asked what he had been writing.

'A song,' he said- a little trifle. It is my habit always to arrest the ideas as they fly through my brain— "To catch the Cynthia of the minute.”

This is not a catch, though; it is a song: would you like to hear it?'

I said By all means.' He immediately began in a voice so shrill and