Tobacco was quite unknown; it was first brought into England about
three hundred years after the days we are dealing with. When a man
once sat himself down with his pot he had nothing to do but drink. He
had no pipe to take off his attention from his liquor. If such a
portentous sight could have been seen in those days as that of a man
vomiting forth clouds of smoke from his mouth and nostrils, the
beholders would have undoubtedly taken to their heels and run for
their lives, protesting that the devil himself had appeared to them,
breathing forth fire and flames. Tea and coffee, too, were absolutely
unknown, unheard of; and wine was the rich man's beverage, as it is
now. The fire-waters of our own time--the gin and the rum, which have
wrought us all such incalculable mischief--were not discovered then.
Some little ardent spirits, known under the name of _cordials_,
were to be found in the better appointed establishments, and were
kept by the lady of the house among her simples, and on special
occasions dealt out in thimblefuls; but the vile grog, that maddens
people now, our forefathers of six hundred years ago had never even
tasted.
The absence of vegetable food for the greater part of the year, the
personal dirt of the people, the sleeping at night in the clothes
worn in the day, and other causes, made skin diseases frightfully
common.
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