three times; in a verse of his Stabat Mater, and in two of the adagios of the Seven Words.

"This is the reason why he has never excelled in dramatic music. Without melancholy, there can be no impassioned music; and, for this cause, the French people, lively, vain, and light, expressing with quickness all their sentiments, sometimes oppressed with ennui, but never melancholic, will never have any music.

"Now we are upon the subject, and that I see you already beginning to scowl, I will tell you the whole of my mind. I shall purposely make use of the most common and intelligible images; and [ invite all my brother manufacturers of paradoxes to follow the same plan."

nese leaf, which now affords our daily refreshment; or that American leaf, whose sedative fumes made it so long an universal favourite; or that Arabian berry, whose aroma exhilarates its European votaries; that the use of these harinless novelties should have spread consternation in the nations of Europe, and have been anathematized by the terrors and the fictions of some of the learned. Yet this seems to have happened. Patin, who wrote so furiously against the introduction of antimony, spread the same alarm at the use of tea, which he calls, "l'impertinente nouveauté du siècle." In Germany,

in wait for men's purses and lives; and Dr. Duncan, in his treatise on hot liquors, suspected that the virtues attributed to tea, were merely to encourage the importation.

"Many virulent pamphlets were published against the use of this shrub, from various motives. In 1670 a Dutch writer says it was ridiculed in Holland under the name of hay-water. "The progress of this famous plant," says an ingenious writer," has been something like the progress of truth; suspected at first, though very palatable to those who had courage to taste it ; resisted as it incroached; abused as its popularity seemed to spread;

and

and establishing its triumph at last, in cheering the whole land from the palace to the cottage, only by the slow and resistless efforts of time and its own virtues."

"The history of the tea-shrub, written by Dr. Lettsom, is usually referred to on this subject; I consider it little more than a plagiarism on Dr. Short's learned and curious dissertation on tea, 1730, 4to. Lettsom has superadded the solemn trifling of his moral and medical advice.

"These now common beverages are all of recent origin in Europe; neither the ancients, nor those of the middle ages, tasted of this luxury. The first accounts we find of the use of this shrub are the casual notices of travellers, who seem to have tasted it, and sometimes not to have liked it: a Russian ambassador, in 1639, who resided at the court of the Mogul, declined accepting a large present of tea for the Czar, "as it would only incumber him with a commodity for which he had no use." The appearance of "a black water" and an acrid taste, seems not to have recommended it to the German Olearius in 1633. Dr. Short has recorded an anecdote of a stratagem of the Dutch in their second voyage to China, by which they at first obtained their tea without disbursing money; they carried from home great store of dried sage, and bartered it with the Chinese for tea; and received three or four pounds of tea for one of sage: but at length the Dutch could not export sufficient quantity of sage to supply their demand. This fact, however, proves how deeply the imagination is concerned with our palate, for the Chinese, affected by the exotic

novelty, considered our sage to be more precious than their tea.

"The first introduction of tea into Europe is not ascertained; according to the common accounts, it came into England from Holland, in 1666, when Lord Arlington and Lord Ossory brought over a small quantity: the custom of drinking tea became fashionable, and a pound weight sold then for sixty shillings, This account, however, is by no means satisfactory. I have heard of Oliver Cromwell's tea-pot in the possession of a collector, and this will derange the chronology of those writers who are perpetually copying the researches of others, without confirming or correcting them.

"Amidst the rival contests of the Dutch and the English East-India Companies, the honour of introducing its use into Europe may be claimed by both. Dr. Short conjectures that tea might have been known in England as far back as the reign of James I. for the first fleet set out in 1600; but, had the use of this shrub been known, the novelty had been chronicled among our dramatic writers, whose works are the annals of our prevalent tastes and humours. It is rather extraordinary that our East-India Company should not have discovered the use of this shrub, in their early adventures; yet it certainly was not known in England so late as in 1641, for in a scarce "Treatise of warm Beer," where the title indicates the author's design to recommend hot in preference to cold drinks, he refers to tea only by quoting the Jesuit Maffei's account, that they of China do for the most part drink the strained liquor of an herb called Chia, hot." The word Cha is the Portuguese term for

Lea

tea, retained to this day, which they borrowed from the Japanese; while our intercourse with the Chinese made us no doubt adopt their term Theh, now prevalent throughout Europe, with the exception of the Portuguese. The Chinese origin is still preserved in the term Bohea, tea which comes from the country of Vouhi; and that of Hyson is the name of the most considerable Chinese then concerned in the trade. "The best account of the early use, and the prices of tea in England, appears in the hand-bill of one who may be called our first tea-maker. This curious hand-bill bears no date, but as Hanway ascertained that the price was sixty shillings in 1650, this bill must have been dispersed about that period.

"Thomas Garway in Exchange alley, tobacconist and coffee-man, was the first who sold and retailed tea, recommending it for the cure of all disorders. The following shop-bill is more curious than any historical account we have.

"Tea in England bath been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and sometimes for ten pounds the pound weight, and in respect of its former scarceness and dearness it hath been only used as a regalia in high treatments and entertainments, and presents made thereof to princes and grandees till the year 1657. The said Garway did purchase a quantity thereof, and first publicly sold the said tea in leaf or drink, made according to the directions of the most knowing merchants into those Eastern countries. On the knowledge of the said Garway's continued care and industry in obtaining the best. tea, and making drink thereof, very many noblemen, physicians, merchants, &c. have ever since sent to bim for the said leaf, and daily re

sort to his house to drink the drink thereof. He sells tea from 16s. to 50s. a pound."

"Probably, tea was not in general use domestically so late as in 1687, for in the diary of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, he registers that "Pere Couplet supped with me, and after supper we had tea, which he said was really as good as any he had drank in China." Had his lordship been in the general habit of drink ing tea, he had not, probably, made it a subject for his diary.

"While the honour of introducing tea may be disputed between the English and the Dutch, that of coffee remains between the English and the French. Yet an Italian intended to have occupied the place of honour; that admirable traveller Pietro della Valle, writing from Constantinople 1615, to a Roman, his fellow-countryman, informing him, that he should teach Europe in what manner the Turks took what he calls "Cahué," or as the word is written in an Arabic and English pamphlet, printed at Oxford 1059, on "the nature of the drink Kauhi or coffee." As this celebrated traveller lived to 1652, it may excite surprise that the first cup of coffee was not drank at Rome: this remains for the discovery of some member of the "Arcadian Society." Our own Purchas, at the time that Valle wrote, was also "a pilgrim," and well knew what was "coffa," which "they drank as hot as they can endure it; it is as black as soot, and tastes not much unlike it; good they say for digestion and mirth."

"It appears by Le Grand's " Vie privée des François," that the celebrated Thevenot, in 1658, gave coffee after dinner; but it was considered as the whim of a traveller;

neither

neither the thing itself, nor its appearance, was inviting: it was probably attributed by the gay, to the humour of a vain philosophical traveller. But ten years afterwards a Turkish ambassador at Paris made the beverage highly fashionable. The elegance of the equipage recommended it to the eye, and charmed the women: the brilliant porcelain cups, in which it was poured; the napkins fringed with gold, and the Turkish slaves on their knees presenting it to the ladies, seated on the ground on cushions, turned the heads of the Parisian dames. This elegant introduction made the exotic beverage a subject of conversation, and in 1672, an Armenian at Paris at the fair-time opened a coffee-house. But the custom still prevailed to sell beer and wine, and to smoak and mix with indifferent company in their first imperfect coffee-houses. A Florentine, one Procope, celebrated in his day as the arbiter of taste in this department, instructed by the error of the Armenian, invented a superior establishment, and introduced ices; he embellished his apartment, and those who had avoided the offensive coffee-houses, repaired to Procope's; where lite. rary men, artists, and wits resorted, to inhale the fresh and fragrant steam. Le Grand says, that this establishment holds a distinguished place in the literary history of the times. It was at the coffee-house of Du Laurent that Saurin, La Motte, Danchet, Boindin, Rousseau, &c, met; but,, the mild steams of the aromatic berry could not mollify the acerbity of so many rivals, and the witty malignity of Rousseau gave birth to those famous couplets on all the coffee-drinkers, which

occasioned his misfortune and his banishment.

Such is the history of the first use of coffee and its houses at Paris. We, however, knew the use before even the time of Thevenot; for an English Turkish merchant brought a Greek servant in 1652, who, knowing how to roast and make it, opened a house to sell it publicly. I have also discovered his hand-bill, in which he sets forth,

"The vertue of the coffee-drink, first publiquely made and sold in England, by Pasqua Rosee, in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, at the sign of his own head."

"For about twenty years after the introduction of coffee in this kingdom, we find a continued series of invectives against its adoption, both in medicinal and domestic views. The use of coffee, indeed, seems to have excited more notice, and to have had a greater influence on the manners of the people, than that of tea. It seems at first to have been more universally used, as it is still on the continent; and its use is connected with a resort for the idle and the curious: the history of coffee-houses is often that of the manners, the morals, and the politics, of a people. Even in its native country, the government discovered that extraordinary fact, and the use of the Arabian berry was more than once forbidden where it grows; for Ellis, in his "History of Coffee," 1774, refers to an Arabian MS. in the king of France's library, which shews that coffee-houses in Asia were sometimes suppressed. The same fate happened on its introduction into England.

"Amidst these contests of popular prejudices, between the lovers of forsaken Canary, and the terrors of

our

our females at the barrenness of an Arabian desert, which lasted for twenty years, at length the custom was universally established; nor were there wanting some reflecting minds desirous of introducing the use of this liquid, among the la-, bouring classes of society, to wean them from strong liquors. Howel, in noticing that curious philosophical traveller, Sir Henry Blount's "Organon Salutis," 1659, observed that this coffa-drink bath caused a great sobriety among all nations: formerly apprentices, clerks, &c. used to take their morning-draughts, in ale, beer, or wine, which often made them unfit for business. Now they play the good-fellows in this wakeful and civil drink. The worthy gentleman Sir James Muddiford, who introduced the practice hereof first in London, deserves much respect of the whole nation." Here it appears, what is most probable, that the use of this berry was introduced by other Turkish merchants, besides Edwards and his servant Pasqua. But the custom of drinking coffee among the labouring classes does not appear to have lasted; and when it was recently even the cheapest beverage, the popular prejudices prevailed against it, and run in favour of tea. The contrary practice prevails on the continent, where beggars are viewed making their coffee in the street. I remember seeing the large body of ship. wrights at Helvoetsluys summoned by a bell, to take their regular refreshment of coffee; and the fleets of Holland were not then built by arms less robust than the fleets of Britain.

"The frequenting of coffee-bouses is a custom which has declined within our recollection, since institutions of a higher character,

and society itself, has so much improved within late years. These were, however, the common assemblies of all classes of society. The mercantile man, the man of letters, and the man of fashion, had their appropriate coffee-houses. The Tatler dates from either to convey a character of his subject., In the reign of Charles II. 1675, a proclamation for some time shut them all up, having become the rendezvous of the politicians of that day. Roger North has given in his Examen a full account of this bold stroke: it was not done without some apparent respect to the British constitution, the court affecting not to act against law, for the judges were sunimoned to a consultation, when, it seems, the five who met did not agree in opinion. But a decision was contrived that "the retailing of coffee and tea might be an innocent trade; but as it was said to nourish sedition, spread lies, and scandalize great men, it might also be a common nuisance." A general discontent, in consequence, as North acknowledges, took place, and emboldened the merchants and retailers of coffee and tea to petition; and permission was soon granted to open the houses to a certain period, under a severe admonition, that the masters should prevent all scandalous papers, books, and libels from being read in them; and hinder every person from spreading scandalous reports against the government. It must be confessed, all this must have frequently puzzled the coffee-house master to decide what was scandalous, what book was fit to be licensed to be read, and what political intelligence might be allowed to be communicated. The object of the government was, probably, to intimidate,

father