COFFEE. 77 
press them *. In France this matter was better 
conducted ; the establishment of public places was 
peaceably maintained ; and in 1669, Soliman-Aga, 
who resided a twelvemonth in Paris, taught several 
persons to drink coffee during his stay, who after his 
departure continued the use of it. 
It is not surprising that a people like the French, 
who are naturally light and lively, should readily 
adopt a beverage which is so well calculated to sup- 
port their spirits : they sought it with avidity ; but 
at first, like all other rarities, it was confined to the 
opulent, and considered as an extraordinary luxury. 
At length, however, it became more common ; its 
price decreased in proportion, and by degrees it 
came within the reach of every class of people 
throughout the country. 
Arabia was formerly the quarter from whence all 
the coffee was imported : the introduction of the 
plant into other countries was a desideratum re- 
served for a nation well known for its persevering 
industry; the Dutch being the first who transported 
this tree from Mocha to Batavia, and from Batavia 
to Amsterdam. At the beginning of the eighteenth 
century, the magistrates of this last city sent a plant 
to Louis the Fourteenth, which was carefully nursed 
in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, and may be 
considered as the father of all those which were 
* The first coffee-house in this country was opened by one 
Jobson, a Jew, at Oxford, in the year 1650. Arthur Tillyard, 
apothecary, sold it publicly in his own house in 1655 ; and Job- 
son afterwards, in London, about the year 1671 . 
