Cried, “The garter is mine, ’tis the order of merit:
The first knights in my court shall be happy to wear—
Proud distinction!—the garter that fell from the fair;
While in letters of gold—’tis your monarch’s high will—
Shall there be inscribed, ‘Ill to him that thinks ill.’”
Coffee
In 1669 Soliman Agu, ambassador from the sultan, Mahomet IV., arrived in Paris, and established the custom of drinking coffee. A Greek, named Pasco, had already opened a coffee-house in London in 1652. The first mention of coffee in the English statute-books occurs in 1660, when a duty of fourpence was laid upon every gallon made and sold.
Billiards
The game of billiards was invented about the middle of the sixteenth century by a London pawnbroker named William Kew. In wet weather this pawnbroker was in the habit of taking down the three balls, and with the yard-measure pushing them, billiard-fashion, from the counter into the stalls. In time, the idea of a board with side-pockets suggested itself. A black-letter manuscript says, “Master William Kew did make one board whereby a game is played with three balls; and all the young men were greatly recreated thereat, chiefly the young clergymen from St. Pawles: hence one of ye strokes was named a ‘canon,’ having been by one of ye said clergymen invented. The game is now known by the name of ‘bill-yard,’ because William or Bill Kew did first play with the yard-measure. The stick is now called a ‘kew,’ or ‘kue.’” It is easy to comprehend how “bill-yard” has been modernized into “billiard,” and the transformation of “kew,” or “kue,” into “cue” is equally apparent.