This is substantially the same as the “Mouth Glue” mentioned in Baret’s Alvearie, 1573–80. (N.E.D.) John Bate gave a recipe for it in 1635: “How to make mouth glew. Take Isinglasse, and steep it in water untill such time as you may easily pull it to peeces, put it into a glasse or pot well leaded, and set it in balneo, that is, in a pot of water on the fire, there let it remaine untill all or the most part of it be dissolved, then strain it thorow a wide haire sieve, while it is hot, upon another course and close haire sieve, and when it is cold it will be like a thick gelly…. If you would have it of a dainty smell, and aromaticall taste, put into it a little cinamon bruised, and a little marjerom, and rosemary flowers, while it is dissolving, and if you please a small quantity of brown sugarcandy, to give it a sweetish smatch.”—‘Mysteries of Nature and Art,’ Lond., p. 248. It may be that the tradition of this domestic manufacture crossed the Atlantic in the 17th century.
1836. The down east girls have a droll way of amusing themselves, viz., by chewing spruce gum, mingled as it frequently is with dirt, dead mosquitoes, and swamp flies.—Phila. Pub. Ledger, May 21.
1842.
| I pleaded till she seemed to see | |
| The burning words I said; | |
| With murmuring lip and moistened eye | |
| She bent her fairy head, | |
| Till to my own her cheek was pressed, | |
| —Hope’s sunny wing I saw,— | |
| And asked me if I didn’t want | |
| A piece of gum to chaw. | |
Phila. Spirit of the Times, April 11. |
1850. But why, my good Sir, is gum more base in woman than tobacco in a man?—S. Judd, ‘Richard Edney,’ p. 158.
1864. I am addicted to no bad habits, such as staring at young men when they are particularly interesting, chewing Burgundy pitch, and carrying a smelling-bottle…. Burgundy pitch, two chaws for a cent, Chewing gum, cent a stick.—Yale Lit. Mag., xxix. 268, 293 (June).
1882. These things are the “chewing-gum of literature.”—Chicago Advance, April 6. (N.E.D.)
