Tipple and Smoke

"We see, then, that the quaffing of burgundy or the smoking of Herba Santa is not, for Melville, an approach to stupefaction, but an act of cameraderie and a defense against the kinds of over-thinking that are sterile or destructive: Biz on the one hand, Empedoclean despair on the other."  --Aaron Kramer in Melville's Poetry: Toward the Enlarged Heart (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1972), page 36.

Chapter 17 in Volume 2 of Melville's Mardi; and, a Voyage Thither (1849) features one comic smoking song, sung by Yoomy the poet. Timoleon, Etc has a more ambitious tribute to tobacco, Herba Santa.

Here is an anonymous eighteenth-century favorite, "Tipple and Smoke," transcribed from The Comic Songster: Or Laughing Companion 4th ed. (London, 1789):

TlPPLE AND SMOKE.

WITH a pipe of Virginia how happy am I,
And good liquor to moisten my clay standing by,
I puff up the smoke and it curls round the room,
Like a Phoenix I seem in a nest of perfume.
               Delighting,
               Inviting,
Is a pipe, and a friend who is fond of a joke,
Then happy together we tipple and smoke.

How pleasant it is thus to puff time away,
And between ev'ry whiff chat the news of the day:
Tobacco, great Raleigh, we owe to thy name,
And ev'ry true smoaker will puff up thy fame!
               Delighting,
               Inviting,
Is a pipe, and a friend that is fond of a joke,
Then happy together we tipple and smoke.

When buss'ness is over, we puff away care,
Let ev'ry man else say the same if he dare ;
This plant, so delightful's a foe to the spleen,
As it glows in the pipe it enlivens the scene:
               Delighting,
               Inviting,
Is a pipe, and a friend that is fond of a joke,
Then happy together we tipple and smoke.

While thus in the fumes we're envelop'd around,
Our heads are like hills which with clouds still are crown'd;
Yet soon we emerge, and go cheerful away,
For a pipe of the best makes us bright as the day:
               Delighting,
               Inviting,
Is a pipe, and a friend who is fond of a joke,
Then happy together we tipple and smoke.

https://books.google.com/books?id=rDRYAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA35&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Earlier collections with "Tipple and Smoke":

The festival of Momus, a collection of comic songs, including the modern and a variety of originals. Printed for W. Lane, Leadenhall-Street, [1780?]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CW0116179191/GDCS?u=nypl&sid=GDCS&xid=59b38db1. Accessed 30 July 2019.

The universal songster or harmony and innocence: an elegant and polite selection of modern and approved songs. Many of which are not inserted in any other collection. Printed for W. Lane, [1785?]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CW0116827942/GDCS?u=nypl&sid=GDCS&xid=2e9a0304. Accessed 30 July 2019.

 The pleasing songster: or, festive companion: containing a choice and approved collection of songs, That are now held in Esteem; The Whole calculated for the Entertainment of the Social Mind, Containing the Newest and most Agreeable Collection ever presented to the Public. Printed for W. Lane, Leadenhall-Street, MDCCLXXXVII. [1787]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CW0113823534/GDCS?u=nypl&sid=GDCS&xid=de09d478. Accessed 30 July 2019.

The 1783 Bacchanalian Songster has a different, more spiritous tune that admits the pleasures of female society: "with a pipe and a glass / and a well favor'd lass."

Along with Hopkinson's A Fair Bargain, the British smoking song "Tipple and Smoke" is counted with miscellaneous poems that Livingston descendant Mary S. Van Deusen would ascribe, tentatively and conjecturally, to Henry Livingston, Jr.