of the difference. One striking result of the use of coffee 

 first, and then of tobacco, among the Mahomedan nations is 

 well deserving of notice. These commodities have been in a 

 great measure substituted for wine and spirits, which had 

 been largely, although clandestinely, used before, and hence 

 a great improvement in the sobriety of Arabs, Persians, and 

 Turks. I give this interesting fact on the authority of Mr 

 Lane, who mentions it in the notes to his translation of the 

 Arabian Nights.* 



Prom Turkey coffee found its way to Europe. It came in 

 use in England before either tea or chocolate. A Turkey 

 merchant of London, of the name of Edwards, is said to have 

 brought the first bag of coffee to England, and his Greek 

 servant to have made the first dish of English coffee about 

 1652. But it is stated in the Life of Wood, the antiquary, 

 that " in 1651, one Jacob, a Jew, opened a coffee-house at 

 the Angel, in the parish of St. Peter-in-the-East, Oxon ; 

 and there it was, by some who delighted in noveltie, drunk. 

 "When he left Oxon, he sold it in Old Southampton-buildings, 

 in Holborne, near London, and was living there in 1671." j 



Coffee-houses were soon after opened in various parts of 

 the metropolis, as also in other parts of the kingdom, for 

 vending it. The excise officers visited the coffee-houses at 

 fixed periods, and took an account of the number of gallons 

 of the liquid that were made, upon which a duty of 4d. per 

 gallon was charged until 1689. 



Three years after the first introduction of coffee upon 

 the statute books, the increase of houses for its sale had 

 become so great, that by the Act passed in 1663, " For the 

 better ordering and collecting the duty of excise, aud pre- 

 venting the abuses therein" (15 Chas. II., cap. 11, sect. 15), 

 express provision is made for the licensing of all coffee- 



* Mr. J. Crawfurd on the History of Coffee, in the Statistical Society's 

 Journal, vol. xv. p. 51. 



