COFFEA ARABICA. 193 
for money to drink your health in wine or beer” (Ellis’s Histor. 
Account of Coffee, Lond., 1774). 
It is supposed that the use of Coffee passed from Constanti- 
nople to the western parts of Europe, by Venice, about 1615, 
as Pietro della Valle, in writing to his friend in Venice, from 
Constantinople, says, that upon his return he should bring 
him some Coffee, which was a thing unknown in his country. 
We next hear of it at Marseilles, in 1644, where it was brought 
by some gentlemen who accompanied M. de la Haye to Con- 
stantinople, who not only brought the Coffee berry, but the 
vessels for making and drinking it.* 
It was brought to Paris, in 1657, by the celebrated traveller 
Thévenot, but was more generally introduced, in 1669, by 
Soliman Aga, the ambassador from the Sultan Mahomet IV. 
It was introduced into England, in 1657, by Daniel Edwards, 
a Turkey merchant; and here, as in the East, it was opposed 
by the religious prejudice of the day. Many sermons were 
written both against coffee-drinking and smoking, and the 
following extract from an old sermon shows the vehemence 
with which it was attacked. “They cannot wait until the 
smoke of the infernal regions surrounds them, but encompass 
themselves with the smoke of their own accord, and drink a 
poison which God made black that it might bear the devil’s 
colour.” Charles the Second placed a duty of fourpence upon 
every gallon of Coffee made and sold, to be paid by the maker, 
Ray, in his “ History of Plants,” published in 1688, says 
that there were then in London as many coffee-houses as in 
Grand Cairo itself. He also supposed that the Arabs destroyed 
the vegetative qualities of the seed, so that it should not be 
* La Roque says that “the Arabians, when they take the Coffee off the fire, 
immediately wrap the vessel in a wet cloth, which fines the liquor instantly and 
makes it cream at top, and occasions a most fragrant steam, which they take great 
pleasure in snuffing up, as the Coffee is pouring into their cups. People of the 
first fashion use nothing but Sultana Coffee, which is prepared chiefly from the 
outward husks or dried pulp.” 
