Intoxication is not only influenced by temperament, but by the nature of the agent which produces it. Thus, ebriety from ardent spirits differs in some particulars from that brought on by opium or malt liquors, such as porter and ale.

I. Modified by Ardent Spirits.—Alcohol is the principle of intoxication in all liquors. It is this which gives to wine,[11] ale, and spirits, their characteristic properties. In the natural state, however, it is so pungent, that it could not be received into the stomach, even in a moderate quantity, without producing death. It can, therefore, only be used in dilution; and in this state we have it, from the strongest ardent spirits, to simple small beer. The first (ardent spirits) being the most concentrated of its combinations, act most rapidly upon the constitution. They are more inflammatory, and intoxicate sooner than any of the others. Swallowed in an overdose, they act almost instantaneously—extinguishing the senses and overcoming the whole body with a sudden stupor. When spirits are swallowed raw, as in the form of a dram, they excite a glow of heat in the throat and stomach, succeeded, in those who are not much accustomed to their use, by a flushing of the countenance, and a copious discharge of tears. They are strongly diuretic.

Persons who indulge too much in spirits rarely get corpulent, unless their indulgence be coupled with good living. Their bodies become emaciated; they get spindle-shanked; their eyes are glazed and hollow; their cheeks fall in; and a premature old age overtakes them. They do not eat so well as their brother drunkards. An insatiable desire for a morning dram makes them early risers, and their breakfast amounts to almost nothing.

The principal varieties of spirits, as already mentioned, are rum, brandy, whisky, and gin. It is needless to enter into any detail of the history of these fluids. Brandy kills soonest; it takes most rapidly to the head, and, more readily than the others, tinges the face to a crimson or livid hue. Rum is probably the next in point of fatality; and, after that, whisky and gin. The superior diuretic qualities of the two latter, and the less luscious sources from which they are procured, may possibly account for such differences. I am, at the same time, aware that some persons entertain a different idea of the relative danger of these liquors: some, for instance, conceive that gin is more rapidly fatal than any of them; but it is to be remembered, that it, more than any other ardent spirit, is liable to adulteration. That, from this circumstance, more lives may be lost by its use, I do not deny. In speaking of gin, however, and comparing its effects with those of the rest of the class to which it belongs, I must be understood to speak of it in its pure condition, and not in that detestable state of sophistication in which such vast quantities of it are drunk in London and elsewhere. When pure, I have no hesitation in affirming that it is decidedly more wholesome than either brandy or rum; and that the popular belief of its greater tendency to produce dropsy, is quite unfounded.

An experiment has lately been made for the purpose of ascertaining the comparative powers of gin, brandy, and rum, upon the human body, which is not less remarkable for the inconsequent conclusions deduced from it, than for the ignorance it displays in confounding dead animal matter with the living fibre. It was made as follows:—

A piece of raw liver was put into a glass of gin, another into a glass of rum, and a third into a glass of brandy. That in the gin was, in a given time, partially decomposed; that in the rum, in the same time, not diminished; and that in the brandy quite dissolved. It was concluded from these results, that rum was the most wholesome spirit of the three, and brandy the least. The inferences deduced from these premises are not only erroneous, but glaringly absurd; the premises would even afford grounds for drawing results of the very opposite nature: it might be said, for instance, that though brandy be capable of dissolving dead animal matter, there is no evidence that it can do the same to the living stomach, and that it would in reality prove less hurtful than the others, in so far as it would, more effectually than they, dissolve the food contained in that organ. These experiments, in fact, prove nothing; and could only have been suggested by one completely ignorant of the functions of the animal economy. There is a power inherent in the vital principle which resists the laws that operate upon dead matter. This is known to every practitioner, and is the reason why the most plausible and recondite speculations of chemistry have come to naught in their trials upon the living frame. The only way to judge of the respective effects of ardent spirits, is by experience and physiological reasoning, both of which inform us that the spirit most powerfully diuretic must rank highest in the scale of safety. Now and then persons are met with on whose frames both gin and whisky have a much more heating effect than the two other varieties of spirits. This, however, is not common, and when it does occur, can only be referred to some unaccountable idiosyncrasy of constitution.

II. Modified by Wines.—Drunkenness from wines closely resembles that from ardent spirits. It is equally airy and volatile, more especially if the light wines, such as Champaign, Claret, Chambertin, or Volnay, be drunk. On the former, a person may get tipsy several times of a night. The fixed air evolved from it produces a feeling analogous to ebriety, independent of the spirit it contains, Port, Sherry, and Madeira, are heavier wines, and have a stronger tendency to excite headach and fever.

The wine-bibber has usually an ominous rotundity of face, and, not unfrequently, of corporation. His nose is well studded over with carbuncles of the Claret complexion; and the red of his cheeks resembles very closely the hue of that wine. The drunkard from ardent spirits is apt to be a poor, miserable, emaciated figure, broken in mind and in fortune; but the votary of the juice of the grape may usually boast the “paunch well lined with capon,” and calls to recollection the bluff figure of Sir John Falstaff over his potations of Sack.[12]

III. Modified by Malt Liquors.—Malt Liquors, under which title we include all kinds of porter and ales, produce the worst species of drunkenness; as, in addition to the intoxicating principle, some noxious ingredients are usually added, for the purpose of preserving them and giving them their bitter. The hop of these fluids is highly narcotic, and brewers often add other substances, to heighten its effect, such as hyoscyamus, opium, belladonna, cocculus Indicus, lauro cerasus, &c. Malt liquors, therefore, act in two ways upon the body, partly by the alcohol they contain, and partly by the narcotic principle. In addition to this, the fermentation which they undergo is much less perfect than that of spirits or wine. After being swallowed, this process is carried on in the stomach, by which fixed air is copiously liberated, and the digestion of delicate stomachs materially impaired. Cider, Spruce, ginger, and table beers, in consequence of their imperfect fermentation, often produce the same bad effects, long after their first briskness has vanished.

Persons addicted to malt liquors increase enormously in bulk. They become loaded with fat: their chin gets double or triple, the eye prominent, and the whole face bloated and stupid. Their circulation is clogged, while the pulse feels like a cord, and is full and labouring, but not quick. During sleep, the breathing is stertorous. Every thing indicates an excess of blood; and when a pound or two is taken away, immense relief is obtained. The blood, in such cases, is more dark and sizy than in the others. In seven cases out of ten, malt-liquor drunkards die of apoplexy or palsy. If they escape this hazard, swelled liver or dropsy carries them off. The abdomen seldom loses its prominency, but the lower extremities get ultimately emaciated. Profuse bleedings frequently ensue from the nose, and save life, by emptying the blood-vessels of the brain.

The drunkenness in question is peculiarly of British growth. The most noted examples of it are to be found in innkeepers and their wives, recruiting sergeants, guards of stage-coaches, &c. The quantity of malt liquors which such persons will consume in a day is prodigious. Seven English pints is quite a common allowance, and not unfrequently twice that quantity is taken without any perceptible effect. Many of the coal-heavers on the Thames think nothing of drinking daily two gallons of porter, especially in the summer season, when they labour under profuse perspirations. A friend has informed me that he knew an instance of one of them having consumed eighteen pints in one day, and he states that there are many such instances.[13]

The effects of malt liquors on the body, if not so immediately rapid as those of ardent spirits, are more stupifying, more lasting, and less easily removed. The last are particularly prone to produce levity and mirth, but the first have a stunning influence upon the brain, and, in a short time, render dull and sluggish the gayest disposition. They also produce sickness and vomiting more readily than either spirits or wine.

Both wine and malt liquors have a greater tendency to swell the body than ardent spirits. They form blood with greater rapidity, and are altogether more nourishing. The most dreadful effects, upon the whole, are brought on by spirits, but drunkenness from malt liquors is the most speedily fatal. The former break down the body by degrees; the latter operate by some instantaneous apoplexy or rapid inflammation.

No one has ever given the respective characters of the malt-liquor and ardent-spirit drunkard with greater truth than Hogarth, in his Beer Alley and Gin Lane. The first is represented as plump, rubicund, and bloated; the second as pale, tottering, and emaciated, and dashed over with the aspect of blank despair.

IV. Modified by Opium.—The drunkenness produced by opium has also some characteristics which it is necessary to mention. The drug is principally employed by the Mahometans. By their religion, these people are forbidden the use of wine,[14] and use opium as a substitute. And a delightful substitute it is while the first excitation continues; for the images it occasions in the mind are more exquisite than any produced even by wine.

There is reason to believe that the use of this medicine has, of late years, gained ground in Great Britain. We are told by the “English Opium-Eater,” whose powerful and interesting “Confessions” have excited so deep an interest, that the practice exists among the work people at Manchester. Many of our fashionable ladies have recourse to it when troubled with vapours, or low spirits: some of them even carry it about with them for the purpose. This practice is most pernicious, and no way different from that of drunkards, who swallow wine and other liquors to drive away care. While the first effects continue, the intended purpose is sufficiently gained, but the melancholy which follows is infinitely greater than can be compensated by the previous exhilaration.

Opium acts differently on different constitutions. While it disposes some to calm, it arouses others to fury. Whatever passion predominates at the time, it increases; whether it be love, or hatred, or revenge, or benevolence. Lord Kaimes, in his Sketches of Man, speaks of the fanatical Faquirs, who, when excited by this drug, have been known with poisoned daggers, to assail and butcher every European whom they could overcome. In the century before last, one of this nation attacked a body of Dutch sailors, and murdered seventeen of them in one minute. The Malays are strongly addicted to opium. When violently aroused by it, they sometimes perform what is called Running-a-Muck, which consists in rushing out in a state of phrensied excitement, heightened by fanaticism, and murdering every one who comes in their way. The Turkish commanders are well aware of the powers of this drug in inspiring an artificial courage; and frequently give it to their men when they put them on any enterprise of great danger.

Some minds are rendered melancholy by opium. Its usual effect, however, is to give rise to lively and happy sensations. The late Duchess of Gordon is said to have used it freely, previous to appearing in great parties, where she wished to shine by the gaiety of her conversation and brilliancy of her wit. A celebrated pleader at the Scotch bar is reported to do the same thing, and always with a happy effect.

In this country opium is much used, but seldom with the view of producing intoxication. Some, indeed, deny that it can do so, strictly speaking. If by intoxication is meant a state precisely similar to that from over-indulgence in vinous or spirituous liquors, they are undoubtedly right; but drunkenness merits a wider latitude of signification. The ecstasies of opium are much more entrancing than those of wine. There is more poetry in its visions—more mental aggrandizement—more range of imagination. Wine, in common with it, invigorates the animal powers and propensities, but opium, in a more peculiar manner, strengthens those proper to man, and gives, for a period amounting to hours, a higher tone to the intellectual faculties. It inspires the mind with a thousand delightful images, lifts the soul from earth, and casts a halo of poetic thought and feeling over the spirits of the most unimaginative. Under its influence, the mind wears no longer that blank passionless aspect which, even in gifted natures, it is apt to assume. On the contrary, it is clothed with beauty “as with a garment,” and colours every thought that passes through it with the hues of wonder and romance. Such are the feelings which the luxurious and opulent Mussulman seeks to enjoy. To stir up the languid current of his mind, satiated with excess of pleasure and rendered sluggish by indolence, he has recourse to that remedy which his own genial climate produces in greatest perfection. Seated perhaps amid the luxuries of Oriental splendour—with fountains bubbling around, and the citron shading him with its canopy, and scattering perfume on all sides—he lets loose the reins of an imagination conversant from infancy with every thing gorgeous and magnificent. The veil which shades the world of fancy is withdrawn, and the wonders lying behind it exposed to view; he sees palaces and temples in the clouds; or the Paradise of Mahomet, with its houris and bowers of amaranth, may stand revealed to his excited senses. Every thing is steeped in poetic exaggeration. The zephyrs seem converted into aërial music, the trees bear golden fruit, the rose blushes with unaccustomed beauty and perfume. Earth, in a word, is brought nearer to the sky, and becomes one vast Eden of pleasure. Such are the first effects of opium; but in proportion as they are great, so is the depression which succeeds them. Languor and exhaustion invariably come after; to remove which, the drug is again had recourse to, and becomes almost an essential of existence.

Opium retains at all times its power of exciting the imagination, provided sufficient doses are taken. But when it has been continued so long as to bring disease upon the constitution, the pleasurable feelings wear away, and are succeeded by others of a very different kind. Instead of disposing the mind to be happy, it now acts upon it like the spell of a demon, and calls up phantoms of horror and disgust. The fancy is still as powerful as ever, but it is turned in another direction. Formerly it clothed all objects with the light of heaven; now it invests them with the attributes of hell. Goblins, spectres, and every kind of distempered vision haunt the mind, peopling it with dreary and revolting imagery. The sleep is no longer cheered with its former sights of happiness. Frightful dreams usurp their place, till, at last, the person becomes the victim of an almost perpetual misery.[15] Nor is this confined to the mind alone, for the body suffers in an equal degree. Emaciation, loss of appetite, sickness, vomiting, and a total disorganization of the digestive functions, as well as of the mental powers, are sure to ensue, and never fail to terminate in death, if the evil habit which brings them on is continued.

Opium resembles the other agents of intoxication in this, that the fondness for it increases with use, and that at last, it becomes nearly essential for bodily comfort and peace of mind. The quantity which may be taken varies exceedingly, and depends wholly upon age, constitution, and habit. A single drop of laudanum has been known to kill a newborn child; and four grains of solid opium have destroyed an adult. Certain diseases, such as fevers, phrensies, &c., facilitate the action of opium upon the system; others, such as diarrhœa, cramp, &c., resist it; and a quantity which would destroy life in the former, would have little perceptible effect in the latter. By habit, enormous quantities of the drug may be taken with comparative impunity. There are many persons in this country who make a practice of swallowing half an ounce of laudanum night and morning, and some will even take from one to two drachms daily of solid opium. The Teriakis, or opium-eaters of Constantinople, will sometimes swallow a hundred grains at a single dose. Nay, it is confidently affirmed that some of them will take at once three drachms in the morning, and repeat the same dose at night, with no other effect than a pleasing exhilaration of spirits. The “English Opium-Eater” himself furnishes one of the most extraordinary instances on record of the power of habit in bringing the body to withstand this drug. He took daily eight thousand drops of laudanum, containing three hundred and twenty grains of opium. This enormous quantity he reduced suddenly, and without any considerable effort, to one thousand drops, or forty grains. “Instantaneously,” says he, “and as if by magic, the cloud of profoundest melancholy which rested upon my brain, like some black vapours which I have seen roll away from the summits of the mountains, drew off in one day—passed off with its murky banners, as simultaneously as a ship that has been stranded, and is floated off by the spring-tide.”

The circumstance of the body being brought by degrees to withstand a great quantity of opium is not solitary, but exists as a general rule with regard to all stimulants and narcotics. A person who is in the habit of drinking ale, wine, or spirits, will take much more with impunity than one who is not; and the faculty of withstanding these agents goes on strengthening till it acquires a certain point, after which it becomes weakened. When this takes place, there is either organic disease or general debility. A confirmed drunkard, whose constitution has suffered from indulgence, cannot take so much liquor, without feeling it, as one who is in the habit of taking his glass, but whose strength is yet unimpaired. It is, I suspect, the same, though probably in a less degree, with regard to opium.

Mithridates, king of Pontus, affords an instance of the effects of habit in enabling the body to withstand poisons; and on the same principle, we find that physicians and nurses who are much exposed to infection, are less liable to take it than those persons whose frames are not similarly fortified.

Opium resembles wine, spirit, and ales, in affecting the brain and disposing to apoplexy. Taken in an overdose, it is fatal in from six to twenty-four hours, according to the quantity swallowed, and the constitution, habits, &c., of the person submitted to its operation. The following are the principal symptoms of poisoning from opium. Giddiness succeeded by stupor; insensibility to light, while the eyes are closed, and the pupil immoveable, and sometimes dilated. The pulse is generally small and feeble, but, occasionally, slow and full, as in common apoplexy. The breathing at first is scarcely perceptible, but is apt to become stertorous. Foam sometimes issues from the mouth: in other cases there is vomiting. The countenance is cadaverous and pale or livid. A narcotic odour is often perceptible in the breath. The skin is cold, and the body exceedingly relaxed; now and then it is convulsed. By being struck, shaken, or excited any way, the person sometimes recovers for a short period from his stupor, and stares wildly around him, but only to relapse into lethargy. At last death ensues, but shortly before this event, a deceitful show of animation occasionally makes its appearance, and may impose upon superficial observers.

I extract the following interesting case of opium-eating from a London paper:—

“An inquest was held at Walpole lately, on the body of Rebecca Eason, aged five years, who had been diseased from her birth, was unable to walk or articulate, and from her size did not appear to be more than five weeks old. The mother had for many years been in the habit of taking opium in large quantities, (nearly a quarter of an ounce a-day;[16]) and, it is supposed, had entailed a disease on her child which caused its death; it was reduced to a mere skeleton, and had been in that state from birth. Verdict; ‘Died by the visitation of God; but from the great quantity of opium taken by the mother during her pregnancy of the said child, and of suckling it, she had greatly injured its health.’ It appeared that the mother of the deceased had had five children; that she began to take opium after the birth and weaning of her first child, which was and is remarkably healthy; and that the other children have all lingered and died in the same emaciated state as the child who was the subject of this investigation. The mother is under thirty: she was severely censured by the coroner for indulging in so pernicious a practice.”

V. Modified by Tobacco.—A variety of drunkenness is excited by tobacco. This luxury was introduced into Europe from the New World, in 1559, by a Spanish gentleman, named Hernandez de Toledo, who brought a small quantity into Spain and Portugal. From thence, by the agency of the French ambassador at Lisbon, it found its way to Paris, where it was used in the form of powder by Catherine de Medicis, the abandoned instigator of the massacre of the Protestants on St. Bartholomew’s day. This woman, therefore, may be considered the inventor of snuff, as well as the contriver of that most atrocious transaction. It then came under the patronage of the Cardinal Santa Crocé, the Pope’s nuncio, who returning from his embassy at the Spanish and Portuguese courts, carried the plant to his own country, and thus acquired a fame little inferior to that which, at another period, he had won by piously bringing a portion of the real cross from the Holy Land. It was received with general enthusiasm in the Papal States, and hardly less favourably in England, into which it was introduced by Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1585. It was not, however, without opposition that it gained a footing either in this country or in the rest of Europe. Its principal opponents were the priests, the physicians, and the sovereign princes: by the former, its use was declared sinful; and in 1624, Pope Urban VIII. published a bull, excommunicating all persons found guilty of taking snuff when in church. This bull was renewed in 1690 by Pope Innocent; and about twenty-nine years afterwards, the Sultan Amurath IV. made smoking a capital offence, on the ground of its producing infertility. For a long time smoking was forbidden in Russia, under the pain of having the nose cut off: and in some parts of Switzerland, it was likewise made a subject of public prosecution—the public regulations of the Canton of Berne, in 1661, placing the prohibition of smoking in the list of the ten commandments, immediately under that against adultery. Nay, that British Solomon, James I., did not think it beneath the royal dignity to take up his pen upon the subject. He accordingly, in 1603, published his famous “Counterblaste to Tobacco,” in which the following remarkable passage occurs:—“It is a custom loathesome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”[17] But notwithstanding this regal and sacerdotal wrath, the plant extended itself far and wide, and is at this moment the most universal luxury in existence.

The effects of tobacco are considerably different from those of any other inebriating agent. Instead of quickening, it lowers the pulse, and, when used to excess, produces languor, depression of the system, giddiness, confusion of ideas, violent pain in the stomach, vomiting, convulsions, and even death. Its essential oil is so intensely powerful, that two or three drops inserted into a raw wound, would prove almost instantly fatal.[18] Mr. Barrow, in his travels, speaks of the use made by the Hottentots of this plant, for the purpose of destroying snakes. “A Hottentot,” says he, “applied some of it from the short end of his wooden tobacco pipe to the mouth of a snake while darting out his tongue. The effect was as instantaneous as an electric shock; with a convulsive motion that was momentary, the snake half untwisted itself, and never stirred more; and the muscles were so contracted, that the whole animal felt hard and rigid, as if dried in the sun.” When used in moderation, tobacco has a soothing effect upon the mind, disposing to placid enjoyment, and mellowing every passion into repose. Its effects, therefore, are inebriating; and those who habitually indulge in it may with propriety be denominated drunkards. In whatever form it is used, it produces sickness, stupor, bewilderment, and staggering in those unaccustomed to its use. There is no form in which it can be taken that is not decidedly injurious and disgusting. The whole, from snuffing to plugging, are at once so utterly uncleanly and unnatural, that it is incredible in what manner they ever insinuated themselves into civilized society. A vast quantity of valuable time is wasted by the votaries of tobacco, especially by the smokers; and that the devotees of snuff are not greatly behind in this respect, will be shown by the following singular calculation of Lord Stanhope:—

“Every professed, inveterate, and incurable snuff-taker,” says his Lordship, “at a moderate computation, takes one pinch in ten minutes. Every pinch, with the agreeable ceremony of blowing and wiping the nose, and other incidental circumstances, consumes a minute and a half. One minute and a half out of every ten, allowing sixteen hours to a snuff-taking day, amounts to two hours and twenty-four minutes out of every natural day, or one day out of ten. One day out of every ten, amounts to thirty-six days and a half in a year. Hence, if we suppose the practice to be persisted in forty years, two entire years of the snuff-taker’s life will be dedicated to tickling his nose, and two more to blowing it. The expense of snuff, snuff-boxes, and handkerchiefs will be the subject of a second essay, in which it will appear that this luxury encroaches as much on the income of the snuff-taker as it does on his time; and that by proper application of the time and money thus lost to the public, a fund might be constituted for the discharge of the national debt.”

But this is not the worst of snuffing, for though a moderate quantity taken now and then, may do no harm, yet, in the extent to which habitual snuffers carry it, it is positively pernicious. The membrane which lines the nose gets thickened, the olfactory nerves blunted, and the sense of smell consequently impaired. Not is this all, for, by the strong inspirations which are made when the powder is drawn up, some of the latter is pretty sure to escape into the stomach. This organ is thence directly subjected to a powerful medicine, which not only acts as a narcotic but produces heartburn, and every other symptom of indigestion. It is generally believed that Napoleon owed his death to the morbid state of his stomach produced by excessive snuffing. Snuffing has also a strong tendency to give a determination to the head, and on this account plethoric subjects should be the very last ever to enter upon the habit. If it were attended with no other inconvenience, the black loathsome discharge from the nose, and swelling and rubicundity of this organ, with other circumstances equally disagreeable, ought to deter every man from becoming a snuffer.

The smoker while engaged at his occupation, is even a happier man than the snuffer. An air of peculiar satisfaction beams upon his countenance; and, as he puffs forth volumes of fragrance, he seems to dwell in an atmosphere of contented happiness. His illusions have not the elevated and magnificent character of those brought on by opium or wine. There is nothing of Raphael or Michael Angelo in their composition—nothing of the Roman or Venetian schools—nothing of Milton’s sublimity, or Ariosto’s dazzling romance; but there is something equally delightful, and in its way, equally perfect. His visions stand in the same relation to those of opium or wine, as the Dutch pictures of Ostade to the Italian ones of Paul Veronese—as Washington Irving to Lord Byron—or as Izaak Walton to Froissart. There is an air of delightful homeliness about them. He does not let his imagination run riot in the clouds, but restrains it to the lower sphere of earth, and meditates delightfully in this less elevated region. If his fancy be unusually brilliant, or somewhat heated by previous drinking, he may see thousands of strange forms floating in the tobacco smoke. He may people it, according to his temperament, with agreeable or revolting images—with flowers and gems springing up, as in dreams, before him—or with reptiles, serpents, and the whole host of diablerie, skimming, like motes in the sunshine, amid its curling wreaths.

This is all that can be said in favour of smoking, and quite enough to render the habit too common to leave any hope of its suppression, either by the weapons of ridicule, or the more summary plan of the Sultan Amurath. In no sense, except as affording a temporary gratification, can it be justified or defended. It pollutes the breath, blackens the teeth, wastes the saliva which is required for digestion, and injures the complexion. In addition to this, it is apt to produce dyspepsia, and other disorders of the stomach; and, in corpulent subjects, it disposes to apoplexy. At the present moment, smoking is fashionable, and crowds of young men are to be seen at all hours walking the streets with cigars in their mouths, annoying the passengers. They seem to consider it manly to be able to smoke a certain number, without reflecting that there is scarcely an old woman in the country who would not beat them to naught with their own weapons, and that they would gain no sort of honour were they able to outsmoke all the burgomasters of Amsterdam. As the practice, however, seems more resorted to by these young gentlemen for the sake of effect, and of exhibiting a little of the haut ton, than for any thing else, it is likely soon to die a natural death among them; particularly as jockeys and porters have lately taken the field in the same way, being determined that no class of the community shall enjoy the exclusive monopoly of street smoking.

The observations made upon the effects of snuffing and smoking, apply in a still stronger degree to chewing. This is the worst way for the health in which tobacco can be used. The waste of saliva is greater than even in smoking, and the derangements of the digestive organs proportionably severe. All confirmed chewers are more than usually subject to dyspepsia and hypochondriasis; and many of them are afflicted with liver complaint, brought on by their imprudent habit.

The most innocent, and, at the same time, most disgusting way of using tobacco, is plugging, which consists in inserting a short roll of the plant in the nostril and allowing it to remain there so long as the person feels disposed. Fortunately this habit is as rare as it is abominable; and it is to be hoped that it will never become common in Great Britain.

I have observed, that persons who are much addicted to liquor have an inordinate liking to tobacco in all its different forms: and it is remarkable that in the early stages of ebriety almost every man is desirous of having a pinch of snuff. This last fact it is not easy to explain, but the former may be accounted for by that incessant craving after excitement which clings to the system of the confirmed drunkard.

From several of the foregoing circumstances, we are justified in considering tobacco closely allied to intoxicating liquors, and its confirmed votaries as a species of drunkards. At least, it is certain that, when used to excess, it gives birth to many of the corporeal and mental manifestations of ebriety.

VI. Modified by Nitrous Oxide.—The drunkenness, if it merit that name, from inhaling nitrous oxide, is likewise of a character widely differing from intoxication in general. This gas was discovered by Dr. Priestley, but its peculiar effects upon the human body were first perceived in 1799, by Sir Humphry Davy, who, in the following year, published a very elaborate account of its nature and properties, interspersed with details by some of the most eminent literary and scientific characters, of the sensations they experienced on receiving it into their lungs.

According to these statements, on breathing the gas the pulse is accelerated, and a feeling of heat and expansion pervades the chest. The most vivid and highly pleasurable ideas pass, at the same time, through the mind; and the imagination is exalted to a pitch of entrancing ecstasy. The hearing is rendered more acute, the face is flushed, and the body seems so light that the person conceives himself capable of rising up and mounting into the air. Some assume theatrical attitudes; others laugh immoderately, and stamp upon the ground. There is an universal increase of muscular power, attended with the most exquisite delight. In a few cases there are melancholy, giddiness, and indistinct vision; but generally the feelings are those of perfect pleasure. After these strange effects have ceased, no debility ensues, like that which commonly follows high excitement. On the contrary, the mind is strong and collected, and the body unusually vigorous for some hours after the operation.

At the time of the discovery of the effects of nitrous oxide, strong hopes were excited that it might prove useful in various diseases. These, unfortunately, have not been realized. Even the alleged properties of the gas have now fallen into some discredit. That it has produced remarkable effects cannot be denied, but there is much reason for thinking, that in many cases, these were in a great measure brought about by the influence of imagination. Philosophers seem to be divided on this point, and their conflicting testimonies it is not easy to reconcile. Having tried the experiment of inhaling the gas myself, and having seen it tried upon others, I have no doubt that there is much truth in the reports originally published of its properties, although in many cases, imagination has made these appear greater than they really are. The intoxication which it produces is entirely one sui generis, and differs so much from that produced by other agents, that it can hardly be looked upon as the same thing.

The effects of nitrous oxide upon myself, though considerable, were not so striking as I have seen upon others. The principal feelings produced, were giddiness and violent beating in the head, such as occur in the acmé of drunkenness. There was also a strong propensity to laugh: it occurs to me, however, that in my own case, and probably in some others, the risible tendency might be controlled by a strong effort of volition, in the same way as in most cases of drunkenness, were the effort imperatively requisite. Altogether I experienced nearly the sensations of highly excited ebriety. There was the same seeming lightness and expansion of the head, the same mirthfulness of spirit, and the same inordinate propensity to do foolish things, knowing them to be foolish, as occur in drunkenness in general. I was perfectly aware what I was about, and could, I am persuaded, with some effort, have subjected the whimsies of fancy to the soberer dictates of judgment. In a word, the gas produced precisely a temporary paroxysm of drunkenness, and such a determination of blood upwards as rendered the complexion livid, and left behind some degree of headach. Such are the effects upon myself, but with most people, there is a total unconsciousness of the part they are acting. They perform the most extravagant pranks, and on recovering their self-possession are totally ignorant of the circumstance. Sometimes the gas has an opposite effect, and the person instantly drops down insensible, as if struck by lightning: he recovers, however, immediately. Those who wish to know more of this curious subject, should read Sir H. Davy’s work; but, above all, they should try the gas upon themselves. In the meantime I shall lay before the reader the details, in their own words, of the sensations experienced by Messrs. Edgeworth and Coleridge, and by Dr. Kinglake.