THE HISTORY OF COFFEE. 25 



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

 day, who declared that he should never have acquired so 

 extensive an acquaintance but for the " 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 ! " 



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 : " The Coffee-house Granado" " The Women's 

 Petition against Coffee" and " The Men's Answer to the same' 1 

 Another was entitled, " A. cup of Coffee, or Coffee in its true 

 Colour : " 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 : " 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 ! " 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 w r as 

 the well-known "Rainbow," 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 " power in the land." They were 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, \ve gather from a "broadside" song, which com- 

 mences thus : 

 2 



