The coffee-house was not a new institution in Anne's reign, but then it reached the zenith of its popularity. It was the centre of news, the lounge of the idler, the rendezvous for appointments, the mart for business men. Men might have their letters left there, as did Swift;[287] 'Yet Presto[288] ben't angry, faith, not a bit, only he will begin to be in pain next Irish Post, except he sees M.D.'s little handwriting in the glass frame at the bar of St. James's Coffee House, where Presto would never go but for that purpose.' They were alike the haunt of the wit and the man of fashion—a neutral meeting-ground for all men, although they naturally assorted themselves, like to like, by degrees. There
The gentle Beau too, Joyns in wise Debate,
Adjusts his Cravat, and Reforms the State[289]
—and he might even rub shoulders with a highwayman, as Farquhar suggests, when he makes Aimwell say to Gibbet,[290] who is a highwayman, 'Pray Sir, ha'nt I seen your face at Will's Coffee House?' and he replies, 'Yes Sir, and at White's too.' But the excellent rules in force, and the good common sense of the frequenters, prevented any ill effects from this admixture of classes. All were equal, and took the first seat which came to hand. If a man swore, he was fined 1s., and if he began a quarrel he was fined 'dishes' round. Discussion on religion was prohibited, no card-playing or dicing allowed, and no wager might be made exceeding 5s. These were the simple rules generally used, and, if they were only complied with, all must have felt the benefit of such a mild despotism.
Wood mentions that the first coffee-house was at Oxford, and was kept, in 1650, by Jacobs, a Jew. The first in London seems to have been kept by a foreigner named Rosa Pasquee, in 1652, in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, whilst Hatton says[291]: 'I find it Recorded that one James Farr, a Barber, who kept the Coffee House which now is the Rainbow, by the Inner Temple Gate, (one of the first in England) was in the year 1657 presented by the Inquest of St. Dunstans in the W. for Making and Selling a sort of Liquor, called Coffee, as a great Nusance and Prejudice of the neighbourhood, &c. And who would then have thought London would ever have had near 3,000 such Nusances, and that Coffee should have been (as now) so much Drank by the best of Quality and Physicians.' Of these 'near 3,000' I have, in my searches through the newspapers, etc., of the period, found the names of over 500, which, to preserve them again from falling into oblivion, are to be found in the Appendix to this book.
These coffee-houses sold alcoholic liquors as well as coffee; a fact which is somewhat whimsically illustrated in the following extract from a letter of Bishop Trelawney to Bishop Sprat, July 20, 1702 or 3.[292] 'I had a particular obligation to Burnett, and will publicly thank him in print (among other matters I have to say to him, and to his Articles against our religion) for his causing it to be spread by his emissaries that I was drunk at Salisbury the 30th of January; whereas the Major General,[293] Captain Culleford, a very honest Clergyman, and the people of the Inn (which was a coffee house too) can swear I drank nothing but two dishes of Coffee; and, indeed I had not stopped at all, but to enable my children by a very slender bait, to hold out to Blandford, where I dined at 6 that night.'
Misson, speaking of coffee-houses, says: 'These Houses, which are very numerous in London, are extreamly convenient. You have all Manner of News there: You have a good Fire, which you may sit by as long as you please; You have a Dish of Coffee, you meet your Friends for the Transaction of Business, and all for a Penny, if you don't Care to spend more.' Yes, that was all—anybody, decently dressed, might have all this accommodation for One Penny. 'Laying down my Penny upon the Bar,' writes Addison,[294] and 'so briefly deposited my Copper at the Bar,' says Brown, show that the habitués spent no more; and Steele, in the first number of the Tatler, speaking of the expenses attending the production of the paper, says: 'I once more desire my readers to consider, that as I cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Will's under two pence each day, merely for his charges; to White's under sixpence; nor to the Grecian, without allowing him some plain Spanish (snuff) to be as able as others at the learned table,' etc.
A man with leisure got rid of some hours daily at the coffee-house, or houses, and such a one would spend from 10 A.M. till noon, and again, after his two-o'clock dinner, would be there from 4 to 6, when he would leave for the theatre, or his turn in the park.
The illustration gives us an excellent idea of the interior of a coffee-house, and its domestic economy—the dame de comptoir, the roaring fire with its perpetual supply of hot water, and its coffee and tea pots set close by, so as to be kept warm, and the very plain tables and stools, show the accommodation that was required, and accepted, by the very plain-living people of that day.
A coffee-house is necessarily a pièce de résistance with Ward. He describes it graphically, though somewhat roughly, and he brings the scene of the interior vividly before our eyes. 'Come, says my Friend, let us step into this Coffee House here; as you are a Stranger in the Town, it will afford you some Diversion. Accordingly in we went, where a parcel of Muddling Muckworms were as busy as so many Rats in an old Cheese Loft; some Going, some Coming, some Scribling, some Talking, some Drinking, some Smoaking, others Jangling; and the whole Room stinking of Tobacco, like a Dutch Scoot or a Boatswain's Cabbin. The Walls being hung with Gilt Frames, as a Farriers shop with Horse shooes; which contain'd abundance of Rarities, viz. Nectar and Ambrosia, May Dew, Golden Elixirs, Popular Pills, Liquid Snuff, Beautifying Waters, Dentifrisis, Drops, Lozenges, all as infallible as the Pope,
Where every one above the rest
Deservedly has gain'd the Name of Best