a powder chiefly made of tobacco, the use of which is too well known to need any description here.

Tobacco is usually the basis of snuff; other matters being only added to give it a more agreeable scent, &c. The kinds of snuff, and their several names, are infinite, and new ones are daily invented; so that it would be difficult, not to say impossible, to give a detail of them. We shall only say, that there are three principal sorts: the first granulated; the second an impalpable powder; and the third the bran, or coarse part remaining after sifting the second sort.

"Every professed, inveterate, and incurable snuff-taker (says Lord Stanhope), 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, confines a minute and a half. One minute and a half out of every ten, allowing 16 hours to a snuff-taking day, amounts to two hours and 24 minutes out of every natural day, or one day out of every ten. One day out of every 10 amounts to 36 days and a half in a year. Hence if we suppose the practice to be persisted in 40 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 a proper application of the time and money thus lost to the public, a fund might be constituted for the discharge of the national debt." See NICOTIANA.