And know each fleeting hour may be thy last!
Law of Jury.
The English law of Jury is founded on the law of nature. Man is to be judged by his Peers, because by them only can he be loved.
Tradition.
The Rainbow Coffee-house, near Temple Bar, one of the oldest taverns in the metropolis, was kept by James Fan, a barber, soon after the introduction of coffee into England. Three years previous to the Restoration, anno 1657, he was presented by the Inquest of St. Dunstan’s in the West, “For making and selling a sort of liquor called ‘Coffee,’ as a great nuisance and prejudice of the neighbourhood,” &c. Strange as it may appear, within half a century of this period, namely in 1708, there were upwards of three thousand Coffee-houses in London alone. An old author says, Who would have thought, after the prejudice against coffee, which was considered pernicious and a public nuisance, it would have been, as now, so much drunk “by the best of quality, and by physicians?”
Tobacco.
In the archives of the Society of Antiquaries, amongst other curious documents, is an alehouse license, granted by six justices of the peace in Kent, in which the innkeeper is thus enjoined: “Item, You shall not utter, nor suffer to be uttered, drunke, or taken, any tobacco within your house, cellar, or other place thereunto belonging.” This is dated in the time of James I.