Chapter 15
_News from the Coffe House; in which is shewn their several sorts of Pa.s.sions_ appeared in 1667. It was reprinted in 1672 as _The Coffee House or News-mongers' Hall_.
Several stanzas from these broadsides have been much quoted. They serve to throw additional light upon the manners of the time, and upon the kind of conversation met with in any well frequented coffee house of the seventeenth century, particularly under the Stuarts. They are finely descriptive of the company characteristics of the early coffee houses.
The fifth stanza of the edition of 1667, inimical to the French, was omitted when the broadside was amended and reprinted in 1672, the year that England joined with France and again declared war on the Dutch. The following verses with explanatory notes are from Timbs:
NEWS FROM THE COFFE HOUSE
You that delight in Wit and Mirth, And long to hear such News, As comes from all Parts of the _Earth_, _Dutch_, _Danes_, and _Turks_, and _Jews_, I'le send yee to a Rendezvouz, Where it is smoaking new; Go hear it at a _Coffe-house_, _It cannot but be true_.
There Battles and Sea-Fights are Fought, And bloudy Plots display'd; They know more Things then ere was thought Or ever was betray'd: No Money in the Minting-house Is halfe so Bright and New; And comming from a _Coffe-house_ _It cannot but be true_.
Before the _Navyes_ fall to Work, They know who shall be Winner; They there can tell ye what the _Turk_ Last _Sunday_ had to Dinner; Who last did Cut _Du Ruitters_[75] Corns, Amongst his jovial Crew; Or Who first gave the _Devil_ Horns, _Which cannot but be true_.
A _Fisherman_ did boldly tell, And strongly did avouch, He Caught a Shoal of Mackarel, That Parley'd all in _Dutch_, And cry'd out _Yaw, yaw, yaw Myne Here_; But as the Draught they Drew They Stunck for fear, that _Monck[76] was there_, _Which cannot but be true_.
There's nothing done in all the World, From _Monarch_ to the _Mouse_ But every Day or Night 'tis hurld Into the _Coffe-house_.
What _Lillie_[77] or what _Booker_[78] can By Art, not bring about, At _Coffe-house_ you'l find a Man, _Can quickly find it out_.
They know who shall in Times to come, Be either made, or undone, From great _St. Peters street_ in _Rome_, To _Turnbull-street_[79] in _London_;
They know all that is Good, or Hurt, To Dam ye, or to Save ye; There is the _Colledge_, and the _Court_, The _Country_, _Camp_ and _Navie_; So great a _Universitie_, I think there ne're was any; In which you may a Schoolar be For spending of a Penny.
Here Men do talk of every Thing, With large and liberal Lungs, Like Women at a Gossiping, With double tyre of Tongues; They'l give a Broad-side presently, Soon as you are in view, With Stories that, you'l wonder at, Which they will swear are true.
The Drinking there of _Chockalat_, Can make a _Fool_ a _Sophie_: 'Tis thought the _Turkish Mahomet_ Was first Inspir'd with _Coffe_, By which his Powers did Over-flow The Land of _Palestine_: Then let us to, the _Coffe-house_ go, 'Tis Cheaper farr then Wine.
You shall know there,
Both Old and Young, and Great and Small, And Rich, and Poore, you'l see; Therefore let's to the _Coffe_ All, Come All away with Mee.
FINIS.
Robert Morton made a contribution to the controversy in _Lines Appended to the Nature, Quality and Most Excellent Vertues of Coffee_ in 1670.
There was published in 1672 _A Broad-side Against Coffee, or the Marriage of the Turk_, verses that attained considerable fame because of their picturesque invective. They also stressed the fact that Pasqua Rosees partner was a coachman, and imitated the broken English of the Ragusan youth:
A BROAD-SIDE AGAINST COFFEE; OR, THE MARRIAGE OF THE TURK
_Coffee_, a kind of _Turkish Renegade_, Has late a match with _Christian water_ made; At first between them happen'd a Demur, Yet joyn'd they were, but not without great _stir_;
_Coffee_ was cold as _Earth, Water_ as _Thames_, And stood in need of recommending Flames;
_Coffee_ so brown as berry does appear, Too swarthy for a Nymph so fair, so clear:
A Coachman was the first (here) _Coffee_ made, And ever since the rest _drive on_ the trade; _Me no good Engalash_! and sure enough, He plaid the Quack to salve his Stygian stuff; _Ver boon for de stomach, de Cough, de Ptisick_ And I believe him, for it looks like Physick.
_Coffee_ a crust is charkt into a coal, The smell and taste of the Mock _China_ bowl; Where huff and puff, they labour out their lungs, Lest _Dives_-like they should bewail their tongues.
And yet they tell ye that it will not burn, Though on the Jury Blisters you return; Whose furious heat does make the water rise, And still through the Alembicks of your eyes.
Dread and desire, ye fall to't snap by snap, As hungry Dogs do scalding porrige lap, But to cure Drunkards it has got great Fame; _Posset_ or _Porrige_, will't not do the same?
Confusion huddles all into one Scene, Like _Noah's_ Ark, the clean and the unclean.
But now, alas! the Drench has credit got, And he's no Gentleman that drinks it not; That such a _Dwarf_ should rise to such a stature!
But Custom is but a remove from Nature.
A _little_ Dish, and a _large_ Coffee-house, What is it, but a _Mountain_ and a _Mouse_?
_Mens humana novitatis avidissima._
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1670]
And so it came to pa.s.s that coffee history repeated itself in England.
Many good people became convinced that coffee was a dangerous drink. The tirades against the beverage in that far-off time sound not unlike the advertising patter employed by some of our present-day coffee-subst.i.tute manufacturers. It was even ridiculed by being referred to as "ninny broth" and "Turkey gruel."
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1672]
_A brief description of the excellent vertues of that sober and wholesome drink called coffee_ appeared in 1674 and proved an able and dignified answer to the attacks that had preceded it. That same year, for the first time in history, the s.e.xes divided in a coffee controversy, and there was issued _The Women's Pet.i.tion against Coffee, representing to public consideration the grand inconveniences accruing to their s.e.x from the excessive use of the drying and enfeebling Liquor_, in which the ladies, who had not been accorded the freedom of the coffee houses in England, as was the custom in France, Germany, Italy, and other countries on the Continent, complained that coffee made men as "unfruitful as the deserts where that unhappy berry is said to be bought." Besides the more serious complaint that the whole race was in danger of extinction, it was urged that "on a domestic message a husband would stop by the way to drink a couple of cups of coffee."
This pamphlet is believed to have precipitated the attempt at suppression by the crown the following year, despite the prompt appearing, in 1674, of _The Men's Answer to the Women's Pet.i.tion Against Coffee, vindicating... their liquor, from the undeserved aspersion lately cast upon them, in their scandalous pamphlet_.
The 1674 broadside in defense of coffee was the first to be ill.u.s.trated; and for all its air of pretentious grandeur and occasional bathos, it was not a bad rhyming advertis.e.m.e.nt for the persecuted drink. It was printed for Paul Greenwood and sold "at the sign of the coffee mill and tobacco-roll in Cloath-fair near West-Smithfield, who selleth the best Arabian coffee powder and chocolate in cake or roll, after the Spanish fas.h.i.+on, etc." The following extracts will serve to ill.u.s.trate its epic character:
When the sweet Poison of the Treacherous Grape, Had Acted on the world a General Rape; Drowning our very Reason and our Souls In such deep Seas of large o'reflowing Bowls.
When Foggy Ale, leavying up mighty Trains Of muddy Vapours, had besieg'd our Brains;
Then Heaven in Pity, to Effect our Cure.
First sent amongst us this _All-healing-Berry_, At once to make us both _Sober_ and _Merry_.
_Arabian_ Coffee, a Rich Cordial To Purse and Person Beneficial, Which of so many Vertues doth partake, Its Country's called Felix for its sake.
From the Rich Chambers of the Rising Sun, Where Arts, and all good Fas.h.i.+ons first begun, Where Earth with choicest Rarities is blest, And dying _Phoenix_ builds Her wondrous Nest: COFFEE arrives, that Grave and wholesome Liquor, That heals the Stomack, makes the Genius quicker, Relieves the Memory, Revives the Sad.