[Re-enter Face.]
Face.What! my honest Abel?
Though art well met here.
Drug.Troth, sir, I was speaking,
Just as your worship came here, of your worship:
I pray you speak for me to master doctor.
Face.He shall do any thing.—Doctor, do you hear?
This is my friend, Abel, an honest fellow;
He lets me have good tobacco, and he does not
Sophisticate it with sack-lees or oil,
Nor washes it in muscadel and grains,
Nor buries it in gravel, under ground,
Wrapp'd up in greasy leather, or piss'd clouts:
But keeps it in fine lily pots, that, open'd,
Smell like conserve of roses, or French beans.
He has his maple block, his silver tongs,
Winchester pipes, and fire of juniper:[1]
A neat, spruce, honest fellow, and no goldsmith.[2]
Sub.He is a fortunate fellow, that I am sure on.
- ↑ He has his maple block, his silver tongs,
Winchester pipes, and fire of juniper] It should be observed that the houses of druggists (tobacconists) were not merely furnished with tobacco, but with conveniences for smoaking it. Every well frequented shop was an academy of this "noble art," where professors regularly attended to initiate the country aspirant. Abel's Shop is very graphically described, and seems to be one of the most fashionable kind. The maple block was for shredding the tobacco leaf, the silver tongs for holding the coal, and the fire of juniper for the customers to light their pipes. Juniper is not lightly mentioned; "when once kindled," Fuller says, "it is hardly quenched:" and Upton observes, from Cardan, that "a coal of juniper, if covered with its own ashes, will retain its fire a whole year." - ↑ Mr. Bowle, the author of some very stupid notes on Milton, (see the late editions of that poet,) has chosen to "vent his
