From Chapter 9: Some sigh for this and that
My wishes don't go far;
The world may wag at will,
So I have my cigar.
- Thomas Hood.
The revival of
smoking among those who were most amenable to the dictates of fashion, and among whom consequently tobacco had long been in bad odour, came by way of the cigar.
In the preceding chapters all the references to and illustrations of
smoking have been concerned with pipes. Until the early years of the nineteenth century the use of cigars was practically unknown in this country. The earliest notices of cigars in English books occur in accounts of travel in Spain and Portugal, and in the Spanish Colonies, and in such notices the phonetic spelling of "segar" often occurs. A few folk still cling to this spelling—there was a "segar-shop" in the Strand till quite recently, and I saw the notice "segars" the other day over a small tobacco-shop in York—which has no authority, and on etymological grounds is indefensible. The derivation of "cigar" is not altogether clear; but the probabilities are strongly in favour of its connexion with "cigarra," the Spanish name for the cicada, the shrilly-chirping insect familiar in the southern countries of Europe, and the subject of frequent allusions by the ancient writers of Greece and Rome, as well as by modern scribes. A Spanish lexicographer of authority says that the cigar has the form of a "cicada" of paper, and, on the whole, it is highly probable that the likeness of the roll
of tobacco-leaf to the cylindrical body of the insect (
cigarra) was the reason that the "cigarro" was so called. There is no warrant of any kind for "segar."
From The earliest mention of cigars in English occurs in a book dated 1735. A traveller in Spanish America, named Cockburn, whose narrative was published in that year, describes how he met three friars at Nicaragua, who, he says, "gave us some Seegars to smoke ... these are Leaves
of tobacco rolled up in such Manner that they serve both for a Pipe and Tobacco itself ... they know no other way here, for there is no such Thing as a Tobacco-Pipe throughout New Spain."
From Chapter 14: Another eighteenth-century clerical worthy, the famous Dr. Parr, an inveterate
smoker, was accustomed to do what Mr. Disney prevented Archbishop Blackburn from doing—he smoked in his vestry at Hatton. This he did before the sermon, while the congregation were singing a hymn, and apparently both parties were pleased, for Parr would say: "My people like long hymns; but I prefer a long clay."
Robert Hall, the famous Baptist preacher, having once upon a time strongly denounced
smoking as an "odious custom," learned to smoke himself as a result of his acquaintance with Dr. Parr. Parr was such a continual
smoker that anyone who came into his company, if he had never smoked before, had to learn the use of a pipe as a means of self-defence. Hall, who became a heavy
smoker, is said to have smoked in his vestry at intervals in the service. He probably found some relief in tobacco from the severe internal pains with which for many years he was afflicted.
