On Snuff

Mrs J. Cobb

Ye Muses ’mong Adonis who dwell
 And have noses of tangible stuff
Come, succour a poor puzzled Belle
 Who’s ordained to descant upon snuff.

Dust cephalic, how warm and refreshing
 It furs the nose up like a muff
’Tis both Fox and Bearskin possessing
 To be amply supplied with good snuff.

How oft with catarrh in the head
 We snuffle, we sneeze, and we puff,
Let those then such evils who dread
 Seek and early prevention in snuff.

To the brain it gives fancy and vigor
 While the skin it makes tawny and tough,
So that Time cannot dull or disguise
 A resolute taker of snuff.

Pandora humanity mocks
 ’Gainst her perils how few can stand bluff
You’d be slain with the plagues from her box
 Were it not for your own box of snuff.

On the nose and face tho’ it leave trace
 And zig-zag lines dingy and rough
Such marks my be taken for graces
 When known as impressions of snuff.

Embrowned tho’ the finger and thumb are
 The coat smeared form cape to the cuff,
Such spots on the Sun’s disk by some are
 Thought beauties, and why not in snuff.

A Beau for mustachios should pine
 To make him look warlike and gruff,
Oh how like a hero he’d shine
 Could he show but mustachios of snuff

’Tis the acme of gallantry’s art
 And was practised by Donald McDuff
He could win the most obdurate heart
 With no talent but taking Scotch snuff.

With such sanction my dear nephew Charles
 Of Moccabau take quantum suff.
Nor let your Xantippes loud parles
 Restrain you from feating on snuff.

Nay who that beholds your gay box
 And could at it churlishly huff
Should receive on each ear such a box
 As would silence his railing ’gainst snuff.

And now my dear niece without fiction
 Methinks I have reasoned enough
And forced on your mind full conviction
 What virtues are centred in snuff.