Too many still beguiled by tobacco's siren

In 1605, Scottish soldier and composer Captain Tobias Hume published a musical setting of an anonymous poem celebrating one of the wonders brought to Europe from the colonies of the New World.

"Tobacco, Tobacco sing sweetly for Tobacco, Tobacco is like love," it went.

Like love, according to the poem, tobacco "makes men sail from shore to shore", "makes men poor", "makes men scorn coward fears" and "sets men by the ears". It ends with an enraptured "O love it, for you see I have proved it".