From Chapter 3: The druggist-tobacconists were well stocked with
abundance of pipes—those known as Winchester pipes were highly popular—with maple blocks for cutting or shredding the tobacco upon, juniper wood charcoal fires, and silver tongs with which the hot charcoal could be lifted to light the customer's pipe. The maple block was in constant use in those days, when the many present forms of prepared tobacco and varied mixtures were unknown. In Middleton and Dekker's "Roaring Girl," 1611, the "mincing and shredding
of tobacco" is mentioned; and in the same play, by the way, we are told that "a pipe of rich smoak" was sold for sixpence.
From Chapter 1: All the evidence agrees that whoever taught Raleigh, it was Raleigh's example that brought
smoking into notice and common use. Long before his death in 1618 it had become fashionable, as we shall see, in all ranks of society. He is said to have smoked a pipe on the morning of his execution, before he went to the scaffold, a tradition which is quite credible.