12 COCOA AND CHOCOLATE 



by many for its (:< wonderful faculty of quenching 

 thirst, allaying hectic heats, of nourishing and fatten- 

 ing the body," it was seriously condemned by others 

 as an inflamer of the passions ! 



Chocolate Houses and Clubs. 



" The drinking here of chocolate 

 Can make a fool a sophie." 



In the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth, tea, coffee, 

 and chocolate were unknown save to travellers and 

 savants, and the handmaidens of the good queen drank 

 beer with their breakfast. When Shakespeare and Ben 

 Jonson forgathered at the Mermaid Tavern, their 

 winged words passed over tankards of ale, but later 

 other drinks became the usual accompaniment of news, 

 story, and discussion. In the sixteen-sixties there were 

 no strident newspapers to destroy one's equanimity, 

 and the gossip of the day began to be circulated and 

 discussed over cups of tea, coffee, or chocolate. The 

 humorists, ever stirred by novelty, tilted, pen in 

 hand, at these new drinks : thus one rhymster de- 

 scribed coffee as 



" Syrrop of soot or essence of old shoes." 

 The first coffee-house in London was started in St. 

 Michael's Alley, Cornhill, in 1652 (when coffee was 

 seven shillings a pound) ; the first tea-house was 

 opened in Exchange Alley in 1657 (when tea was five 

 sovereigns a pound), and in the same year (with choco- 

 late about ten to fifteen shillings per pound) a French- 

 man opened the first chocolate-house in Queen's Head 

 Alley, Bishopsgate Street. The rising popularity of 

 chocolate led to the starting of more of these chocolate 

 houses, at which one could sit and sip chocolate, or 

 purchase the commodity for preparation at home. 

 Pepys' entry in his diary for 24th November, 1664, 

 contains : " To a coffee house to drink jocolatte, very 

 good." It is an artless entry, and yet one can almost 

 hear him smacking his lips. Silbermann says that 



