THE HISTORY OF COFFEE. 25 



curious of which was that of Aubrey, the Boswell of his 

 d a y ? who declared that he should never have acquired so 

 extensive an acquaintance but for the &quot; modern advantages of 

 coffee-houses in this great city; before which men knew not 

 how to be acquainted but with their own relations and 

 societies ! &quot; 



An animated controversy was kept up about coffee during 

 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among the squibs 

 and lampoons of the time may be mentioned the following 

 piquant titles : &quot; The Coffee-house Granado&quot; &quot; The Women s 

 Petition against Coffee&quot; and&quot; The Men s Answer to the same&quot; 

 Another was entitled, &quot; A cup of Coffee, or Coffee in its true 

 Colour : &quot; and a grave writer in prose issued a grotesque 

 hand-bill, headed with a rude cut of coffee-bibbers, surrounded 

 with the following eulogistic legend : &quot; A brief description of 

 the excellent vertues of that sober and wholesome drinke, 

 called coffee, and its incomparable effects in preventing or 

 curing most diseases incidental to human bodies ! &quot; When first 

 introduced into London, coffee sold at from four to five guineas 

 a pound. In. spite of opposition, coffee soon became a favorite 

 drink, and the shops where it was sold, places of general 

 resort ! Another of the earliest coffee-houses of London was 

 the well-known &quot;Rainbow,&quot; near Temple Bar, which still 

 flourishes, but altogether in a new style. In 1675 a proclama 

 tion was issued for closing all coffee-houses. The government 

 soon found, however, that in making such a proclamation they 

 had gone a step too far; for the coffee-houses of even that 

 day had become a &quot; power in the land.&quot; They w^ere indeed 

 the chief organs through which the public opinion of the 

 metropolis was expressed. That coffee-houses in Charles the 

 Second s time were regarded as headquarters for the news of 

 the day, we gather from a &quot;broadside&quot; song, which com 

 mences thus : 

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