Scott, Campbell, Byron, Hood, and Lamb all smoked, and Carlyle
and Tennyson were rarely without a pipe in their mouths. The great
novelists, Thackeray, Dickens, and Bulwer were famous smokers; and so
were the great soldiers, Napoleon, Bluecher, and Grant. While nearly
all the poems here gathered together were written, and perhaps could
only have been written, by smokers, several among the best are the
work of authors who never use the weed,--one by a man, two or three
by women. Among the more recent writers there has been no more devoted
smoker than Mr. Lowell, as his recently published letters testify.
Three of the most delightful poems in praise of smoking are his, and
with Mr. Aldrich's charming "Latakia" are the gems of the collection.
The compiler desires to express his grateful acknowledgments to
friends who have permitted him to use their work and have otherwise
aided him from time to time; and to the many unknown authors whose
poems are here gathered, and whom it was quite impossible to reach;
and to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Company, Harper & Brothers, The
Bowen-Merrill Company, and the publishers of "Outlook," for their
gracious permission to include copyrighted poems.
J.K.
BOSTON, July, 1894.
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