From Chapter 1:
It may further be added that though the use of tobacco was known and practised on the continent of Europe for some time before smoking became common in England—it was taken to Spain from Mexico by a physician about 1560, and Jean Nicot about the same time sent tobacco seeds to France—yet such use was exclusively for medicinal purposes. The smoking of tobacco in England seems from the first to have been much more a matter of pleasure than of hygiene.

From Chapter 8:
In the first two or three decades of the nineteenth century smoking reached its nadir. No dandy smoked. If some witnesses may be believed smoking had almost died out even at Oxford. Archdeacon Denison wrote in his "Memories"—"When I went up to Oxford, 1823-24, there were two things unknown in Christ Church, and I believe very generally in Oxford—smoking and slang"; but one cannot help fancying that the archdeacon's memory was not quite trustworthy. It is difficult to imagine that there was ever a time when the slang of the day was not current on the lips of young Oxford, or that so long as tobacco was procurable it did not find its way into college rooms.